The Mercy Seat
by Chasing Liquor
Summary: AU - In a galaxy where the Sith Empire, led by Sidious and Dooku, are at war with the Jedi and the Republic, the fate of countless worlds will rest in the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his companions. Obidala.
1. Infiltration

**Disclaimer**: Lucas owns all. He's a very rich man.

**Description:** This is an Alternate Universe story set in the time period of Episode III. The "opening crawl" will tell you most of what you need to know, and I don't imagine you'll find the storyline difficult to follow. Essentially, it's a reimagining of the Clone War. Rather than fighting the Separatists, the Republic and the Jedi are at war with the Sith, who -- led by Darth Sidious and Count Dooku -- are seducing wavering Jedi and have amassed a fleet comparable to the Republic's.

I hope that this story, while dark in parts, will convey the sense of great fun present in Mr. Lucas' wonderful movies. There will be an Obidala tilt to this story that will be clear, but it will be far from the sole focus. I hope to provide an entertaining adventure with some twists and turns throughout.

**A/N**: Feedback is always greatly appreciated. Do me a favor and leave a review. Criticism, praise, and questions are all more than welcome. Thanks!

* * *

**THE MERCY SEAT**

War! The Republic is buckling beneath the strain of the evil Sith's attacks. Led by the Dark Lord, Darth Sidious, the Sith continue to conquer and decimate worlds. Lured with the promise of power, disillusioned Jedi Knights and Padawans are joining their ranks in droves.

In a campaign of terrorism, the Sith have begun kidnapping key Republic politicians. Senators and planet rulers live in abject fear. Some have resigned from office; others have joined the Sith.

In space above the Outer Rim world of Sarna, Republic warships do battle with a Sith fleet commanded by the ruthless General Grievous. Infiltrating Grievous' flagship, a Jedi Knight leads a daring mission to rescue a captive Senator.

* * *

...

The chaos was almost beautiful in its random, violent way.

Hapless short-range fighters were carved apart as they attempted to negotiate their way through the crossfire of the battleships. One after the other, A-Wings exploded, erasing from existence some of the Republic's most skilled pilots, and even some Jedi. Dying screams reverberated over the fleet comm system.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wove a path through the narrow spaces between weapons fire, drawing a wide circle around the Sith command ship to reach the docking bay on the other side.

Before he was able to turn about, though, a stray bolt of blaster fire rocked his diminutive vessel, tearing off a chunk of its left wing, which flew back overhead of R2D2, narrowly missing the astromech droid, who loudly whined his protest to the Jedi pilot.

"Calm down, R2," the human's smooth voice replied with but a hint of apprehension. "We're all right. Shift the stabilizers to compensate."

The ship steadied a measure when the droid complied, but another hit would surely take them.

As Obi-Wan finished bringing the A-Wing around, grimacing when the vessel lurched off-course momentarily, he could see the docking bay of Grievous' battleship. Its shields were down, just as he'd known they would be. It appeared as though a new batch of fighters were preparing to take off from within, though.

"This might be one of our more memorable landings," the Jedi quipped, dodging fire as he navigated toward the capacious bay. "Not too fast now, R2…"

Much to Obi-Wan's chagrin, the ship's speed began to increase rather than let up, accelerating the closer they got.

"R2!" he growled, clutching the console in front of him as his weight shifted forward none too gently. "Perhaps I wasn't explicit. I said _not too fast_. _This_ is too fast!"

His loyal droid bantered back with a series of contrary beeps that denied culpability.

"Don't play innocent with me!"

R2 didn't have time to reply.

The A-Wing crashed into the open bay, wiping out a group of engineering droids and side-swiping the Sith Interceptor they were servicing, grinding past it across the large docking area with a most distasteful howl of metal on metal before finally gnashing to a halt.

Two dozen battle droids reacted immediately to the intrusion, surrounding the crippled vessel on all sides, blaster rifles drawn.

"Careful with this one," the nasally droid leader warned.

There was silence for several long seconds as the robotic guards waited. Time stood still before R2's shrill beep finally shattered the thick quiet, distracting some of the battle droids, who were subsequently caught off-guard when the cockpit window shot off of its hinges high into the air and Obi-Wan followed after it with a graceful leap.

Igniting his lightsaber in mid-air, the Jedi sliced three of the droids in half as he landed, ducking into a roll so that he sprang right back to his feet.

With a quick flick of his wrist, palm-out, he commanded the Force to send another six of them flying back into the wreckage of his ship, where they broke apart and crumbled as scrap to the ground.

The rest of the droids attacked him in mass, but he easily deflected their blaster shots, felling half of them with their own weapons fire and cutting through the other half with graceful strokes of his lightsaber.

Soon enough, he stood alone, grinning momentarily at his handiwork. R2's self-conscious mewl drew the Master's eyes.

"Well you can come out now," Obi-Wan encouraged with a teasing smirk. As the droid popped up out of his slot in the A-Wing and cautiously lowered himself down to the deck, the Jedi couldn't help but add, "And a lot of help you were."

R2 beeped petulantly.

"Sure, sure. You'll get the next ones," the Jedi jibed quietly, his eyes no longer on the droid, but searching the bay for the elevator. When his gaze landed upon it on the far side from where they were, he gestured for R2 to follow him. "All right, come on. Stay close."

His diminutive companion trailed after him as he crossed the expanse calmly, his unlit lightsaber held in a loose grip at his side. This might have felt routine in another circumstance, if the hostage weren't of such personal importance to him. But it didn't, and she was.

When he was nearing the elevator, one of the tall bulkheads – which led out of the bay to destinations on the same deck – retracted into the wall above it, and just as he'd expected, a new wave of droids appeared, opening fire immediately.

Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber and leaned back into a fighting stance, as if entrenching himself for a protracted struggle, but after he deflected a pair of incoming blaster bolts, he reached out and snapped his off-hand downward, watching casually as the bulkhead door slammed closed from above, crushing the three droids standing in the doorway and trapping the rest outside of the bay.

The Jedi continued to the elevator placidly, pressing a key on the computer pad to gain entry, then stepping inside, waiting as R2 followed and the doors closed behind them.

A quick glance at the near wall showed another computer panel, which displayed a ship's schematic.

"Do you think you can hack in and find out where they're keeping the Senator?"

R2 beeped in the affirmative, turning so that he was facing the panel and connecting to an input with his thin mechanical port. In a matter of seconds, though Obi-Wan's impatient posture seemed to indicate that it took longer, the droid disconnected and relayed the information orally.

"Deck 47? What's on that level?"

R2 answered him.

"The General's Quarters? That's an observation chamber, as I recall. A rather open space," the Jedi said thoughtfully. "I imagine it's a trap."

The droid expressed his uneasiness.

"Thwarting schemes is my speciality, little one. Besides, you get to wait in the elevator. I'm doing all the leg work, as usual."

R2 relented with a somber whine and, anticipating the Master's order, turned back to the panel, reinserting his computer port and inputting their destination. Seconds later, the elevator began its descent.

Obi-Wan allowed himself a moment's rest, leaning back against the wall behind him. His thoughts predictably turned to the hostage, his friend of many years. He'd been shaken by the kidnapping, so much so that he implored Masters Yoda and Mace Windu not to select him for this mission. But even though he'd freely admitted his difficulty in maintaining a professional detachment from the matter, the venerable Council had deemed him the man most qualified to see to it.

It would soon be clear if they were wrong.

* * *

It was a beautiful room, the General's Quarters, if foreboding in its black, gray, and red color scheme, with pale yellow lights that spawned shadows throughout. On the far side, near enormous windows that revealed the scope of the battle in space, sat the hostage in an ornate throne chair, her wrists held down by metal trappings.

Obi-Wan's heart skipped when he saw her, as relief, disgust, and apprehension all gripped him in a muddled mess of feelings. He wasted no time in descending the near staircase, then crossing the wide-open chamber, navigating past the only obstacle – a long table at the center flanked by a pair of bolted-down chairs.

Stepping up onto the slightly elevated floor where the chair was and stopping to stand beside the hostage, he ably managed to conceal his many emotions, smiling gently with a mock bow.

"Senator," he greeted.

Padme looked upon the Jedi with delighted, comforted eyes.

"Obi-Wan," she breathed. "How did you get in here?"

"It wasn't as difficult as you might imagine," he said, removing her metal bonds with just the slightest tweak of the Force. "Getting out will likely be the greater task."

She stood up, rubbing one tender wrist with her other hand.

"Are you all right?" he asked gently.

Padme smiled with a resourceful bravery, though it didn't feel like her own. Perhaps it was siphoned from the strength in his demeanor and the mild, but genuine concern she saw in his eyes.

"I'm fine."

He accepted the answer with a nod, then gestured toward the door.

"We should really be – "

The sentence was interrupted by a craven man's arrival.

Emerging through the doors onto the platform by the entrance was Quinlan Vos, a hard-looking brute of about thirty-five years, whose sharp features were made deeper and more gaunt by the taint of the Dark Side within him. His eyes, once black, shined the same shade of yellow now as the stripe that crossed the bridge of his nose. A pair of advanced combat droids stood on either side of him, each brandishing an electrostaff.

While Padme took a reactionary step back, her stomach tightening, Obi-Wan looked on the room's new occupants tranquilly.

It had been difficult for him the year prior when he'd first heard of Vos' fall from grace, but he'd made peace with it in the period since. Perhaps, he sadly realized, it was because such a fall was now heartbreakingly common. It no longer surprised him when a Jedi betrayed his oath. That was just the way it was.

"Hello, Quinlan," he said evenly.

"I have been eagerly awaiting this moment," the Sith replied, his voice sounding as if glass were crunching in his throat with each word. "For longer than you know."

"I don't doubt that."

"Put down your sword. I wouldn't want to bloody you in front of your biggest fan."

He glanced at Padme distastefully with his last words. She felt a shiver run through her as his hateful eyes studied her. Obi-Wan took one step to his right, blocking Vos' view.

"I don't think so," he said, his voice dangerously low. "You'll not get away this time, Sith."

Vos flipped forward over the platform railing, elegantly landing on the floor below, unclipping his lightsaber and igniting it. Obi-Wan followed suit, glancing back at Padme.

"Try to stay out of the way."

She nodded, but his small smile of reassurance did little to sooth her. His skills were plain and her confidence in him infinite, but it terrified her just the same to see this dark Jedi before her, his consuming drive the harm of her dearest friend.

The senator did as was requested of her, circling back behind the chair where she'd been held captive, well out of Obi-Wan's way.

Satisfied she was safe for the moment, he began a deliberate walk toward his childhood friend, who was moving to meet him halfway, his red blade humming at his side.

"Your death will curry me much favor with Lord Sidious," Vos taunted.

"I'm afraid you'll both be disappointed."

The Sith christened the duel with a wide swing that Obi-Wan easily deflected, the Jedi dropping back into a defensive posture as was his style, careful as he was backing up that it was in a direction leading them away from Padme.

Vos' attacks were undisciplined and erratic, a mishmash of hammer strikes and lunges that didn't amount to a cohesive offensive. The hate he had within him wasn't fueling his movements, but rather adversely defining them.

Obi-Wan was patient, whirling his lightsaber fluidly with blocks and deflections.

When Vos committed himself too far on a lunge, the Jedi planted his foot on top of the Sith's, holding him in place momentarily so that he could deliver a long, vicious slash across the traitor's neck. Vos' hand flew up to cover the wound instantly as the blood began to flow from it, pouring through the cracks in his fingers as he howled in pain.

Obi-Wan took a step back and, as Vos desperately raised is lightsaber in a final, wild lashing-out, the Jedi severed his arm at the elbow, watching with pity as the detached half of the limb fell, the red lightsaber switching off as the deadened hand hit the metal floor.

The Sith, thoroughly humbled and in excruciating pain, stumbled around for a few moments, his throat conjuring horrible growls, before he fell to his knees, dizzied and nauseated by the quick and heavy blood loss.

"You always were…" the man croaked, "the… lesser… of us. You will… die…" He paused as he coughed violently, and wheezed. "Before… this war… is over."

Obi-Wan looked down on him sadly, the man's fate – and misery – plain, and he drew back his lightsaber.

"I wish it were different," he said.

And then he delivered the final blow.

Vos crumpled onto his side in an undignified heap, one leg twisted under him, one wrist bent awkwardly beneath his hip.

With a final melancholy look at the remains, Obi-Wan gave Padme a meaningful glance from across the chamber. For a moment, she didn't move, too stunned and disturbed and relieved by what she'd seen. But when her friend uttered her name softly, she finally stepped out from behind the chair and hurried toward him, swallowing back bile when she saw the body up close.

Obi-Wan grabbed her arm in a loose grip, stroking it for an instant with his thumb before he led her away from Vos' corpse and up the stairs.

When they neared the top, he let go and pushed her back behind him as the two combat droids approached, attacking simultaneously with their electrostaffs. Obi-Wan ducked, and the two machines dealt each other devastating blows by mistake. As they reeled back, the Jedi sliced them apart with a few easy strokes of his blade.

"Come on," he said, leading her out of the chamber and back out into the corridor.

Padme dutifully followed after him, grabbing onto his free hand, which he thoughtlessly relinquished to her. He took a glance in both directions, then led her to the right.

"You knew him," she said quietly.

"Pardon?"

"The dark Jedi."

He nodded dispassionately, his eyes darting in every direction, scanning for potential dangers as they moved.

"When we were younglings. He was a friend."

"But he turned."

"As has been the lot of many," he said, his voice steady and serene, though it held the slightest hint of sadness that no one but Padme would have noticed. "He sealed his fate when it was pledged to evil."

She knew it wasn't that simple for him, that he'd take the violent act to heart and find a way to heap guilt upon himself for it, but this wasn't the time for her to take the matter up. First, they needed to find a way to leave this place alive.

"How are we going to get off the ship?" she asked.

A pair of droids rounded a near bend, raising their rifles as soon as they spotted the Jedi, but Obi-Wan deflected their clumsy blasts easily, destroying both of them. Then he proceeded to answer Padme as if nothing had happened.

"That's an excellent question, m'lady, but I left that matter to our capable companion." Before she could request clarification, he grabbed his comm-link off of his belt and held it in front of his mouth. "R2, come in."

The faithful droid beeped back over the channel.

"Have you secured us transportation yet?"

R2's reply wasn't to his satisfaction.

"Well what have you been doing this whole time?" He continued before the droid could answer, "Nevermind, I don't want to know. But we have to leave. They obviously know we're here by now. Are there any ships in the secondary bay?"

R2 beeped in the negative.

"What about the escape pods?" Padme asked.

"That's too risky. They'll have a clear shot to blow us out of the sky."

The droid offered an alternative.

"Eject all the pods at the same time? That's not a bad idea. By the time they figure out which one's ours, we'll be out of range. All right, what deck are the escape pods on?"

R2 replied.

"Deck 5. All right, we'll meet you down there. Stay out of trouble."

With one final set of beeps, the channel closed, and Obi-Wan placed the link back into a pouch on his utility belt.

They came to an intersection, and he once more stopped and looked both ways, trying to remember the ship's layout, which was hazy in his mind.

"Which way, m'lady?"

"You're asking me?" she said with mock indignation. "I was a little too busy kicking and screaming to remember directions."

Obi-Wan smirked, but said nothing. After a long moment, he nodded his head to the left and led them in that direction. It was the correct decision. They came upon the elevator not more than a minute later.

* * *

The lift came to a stop. Before the doors opened, Obi-Wan unclipped his lightsaber and had it at the ready in case of a grim eventuality.

It proved a prudent move, for as the doors parted before them, more than fifteen droids were waiting for them, each with their weapons trained. But even with this enormous advantage of numbers and surprise, the Jedi proved too worthy a foe for them.

Igniting his lightsaber, he decapitated the row of six in front of him in one motion, then leaned in and shouldered the broken sextet into the droids behind them. Seven of the remaining nine fell to the ground, and he quickly carved them apart like a machete through tall grass. The last three at least managed to shoot at him, but it was their own weapons' fire that was their end.

When the last fell, Obi-Wan turned back to Padme.

"Come on."

She wore a look of amazement as she came out of the elevator, carefully stepping over and between the fallen droids.

"How did you do that?"

"Beginner's luck," the Jedi quipped.

Padme managed a smile at that, trailing after him down the corridor. They didn't run into any more trouble most of the way, but just as the escape pods came into view and Obi-Wan allowed himself a victorious smile, a bulkhead at the hall's end opened, and he realized with a sinking feeling that the matter wasn't yet resolved.

One by one, six black-clad Sith ignited their lightsabers, their sun-colored eyes looking on the Jedi and the Senator with pernicious intentions.

"I don't suppose they're here to see us off."


	2. Escape

**A/N: **Thanks to Broken for the review. This is a fairly short chapter, but I thought it would be best if self-contained. As always, I greatly appreciate feedback and would love to hear from those who are following the story. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

The Sith, each cloaked in black overtop gray tunics, slowly advanced down the corridor toward the Republic loyalists. Obi-Wan glanced around at his surroundings, trying to gauge how best to handle the situation, but he couldn't see anything that would give him a tactical advantage.

Letting out a calm breath that hid his frustration, the bearded Jedi pulled out his comm-link, handing it to Padme, who almost dropped it in her nervousness. He quickly led her forward by the arm, so that they were beside the first escape pod, as the Sith came within fifteen feet of them.

"Get in there," he said, gesturing to the pod. "And find out what's taking R2 so long."

She nodded breathlessly, climbing into the escape pod, which he sealed behind her with but a moment to spare.

As soon as it latched, he switched on his lightsaber and raised it to block an overhead attack from one of the Sith. Driving his blue blade hard against the red one, he used his strength advantage to shove the man back, just in time to parry a thrust from a second dark Jedi.

He sensed a third one behind him slashing horizontally and ducked, so that the man decapitated one of his companions instead. Then, with a Force-assisted leap, he managed to create some separation, landing a short ways away from the Sith so that he could regroup.

Sealed in the escape pod, Padme called out earnestly over the comm-link, "R2D2! Are you there?"

The droid beeped back at her.

"I need you to get down here. Obi-Wan's holding off some Sith, but there's too many of them! You have to do something."

R2 curtly asked her what she expected of him.

"I don't know! Think of something. Create a distraction."

Out in the corridor, after Obi-Wan landed from his leap, he surprised the Sith by winding his arm back and tossing his lightsaber at them. It spun like a cyclone, cutting one of the dark Jedi's legs apart at the knee.

As the blue blade flew back into its owner's hand, the assailed Sith fell forward, landing on the floor with a thud as he let out an eardrum-rattling scream, bringing both hands now to grip what was left of his knee.

The other four scarcely reacted, the man's agony failing to move them. Rather, those still standing shared a brief look, and a silent command was registered with each.

They rushed at the Jedi in a fury, each one's lightsaber held high. Obi-Wan was able to deflect two of the men's strikes, but the other two scored glancing blows, one to his shoulder and the other to his hip.

Feeling a rush of adrenaline as pain rippled through him, he desperately kicked one of the Sith in the chest, sending him hard into the near well, where the dark assailant struck his head and slid down to the floor in a daze.

Still, the other three had him cornered. He backed away like an animal trying to hold off slaughter, his lightsaber clutched in both hands, waiting for the opening he was certain they'd provide him. But the Sith, as was their deplorable manner, didn't attack immediately, reveling too much in their adversary's predicament to summarily end it.

Eventually they began to jab at him tauntingly. He parried the thrusts easily, but they weren't meant to harm him anyway; they were meant to mock him. To see the great and renowned "Negotiator" in such distress was as pleasurable as a liaison of the flesh to these Sith.

Their reveling proved short-lived, however.

With jarring suddenness, the anti-fire valves on the ceiling were triggered by an inferno that wasn't there, spraying down chemicals on the surprised combatants.

While the Sith were distracted by the unforeseeable occurrence, though, Obi-Wan was not. Spearing one of the men through the stomach, he planted a foot and spun back, elbowing the second in the face, knocking him to his knees. Then he extracted his lightsaber from the first man, slashed the third across the chest, and decapitated the kneeling second Sith.

He left the three of them lying there and took off in a jog back down the corridor toward the escape pod. The Sith who he'd knocked out earlier attacked him along the way, but Obi-Wan easily ducked a swing and carved up his side with a clever stroke, continuing on his way before the man even fell.

It wasn't long before he arrived back at the escape pod, and when he saw that the Sith whose leg he'd severed had died already from blood loss, he finally switched off his lightsaber and refastened it to his belt.

Padme opened the pod's hatch, looking up at him tensely, frowning when she saw the blood staining the arm of his tunic.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine, fine," he said. "Now where is – ?"

R2 beeped a greeting as he carefully navigated around one of the dead Sith.

"There you are! What took you so long?"

The droid informed him, sounding annoyed.

"Oh, that was you. Nicely done," the Jedi said, smiling gratefully. "Come on now; time to go."

R2 awkwardly rolled into the pod, sliding around Padme to make room for Obi-Wan, who climbed in after him and resealed the hatch behind them. It impressed the Master when, without prodding of any kind, the droid immediately interfaced with the computer, no doubt reconfiguring the escape pods to eject simultaneously.

While R2 did his work, Padme lightly gripped Obi-Wan's near shoulder, pulling back his cloak a bit and turning him slightly so that she could get a better look at the blood stain along his arm.

He saw the distress in her eyes and fought the urge to roll his.

"Nothing to be concerned about."

She was about to reply, but cut herself off when she heard the sound of footsteps in the distance.

"See? _That's_ something to be concerned about," Obi-Wan remarked dryly, turning his eyes on R2 earnestly. "Aren't you done yet? I've seen you rewrite mainframes faster than this."

The droid ignored him, his complicated mind given to his task.

Padme shuddered when she heard an all too familiar noise nearer than she'd have liked in the corridor – a mild, distinct cough that could only belong to one man. And then she heard his jagged voice.

"The escape pods!" Grievous bellowed. "Open all of them!"

The shadows of a mob of droids and Sith darkened the pod window.

Obi-Wan's head whipped back toward the robot.

"_Now_, R2!"

And just before their enemies' eyes could look upon them, their escape pod – as well as all the others – ejected into space.

Grievous was caught off-guard by the mass exodus, first letting out a quiet, surprised "what?," and then – upon understanding the Jedi's scheme – releasing a loud, frustrated growl that made one of the young Sith wince.

"Order the Bridge to destroy them all!" the droid-man barked before succumbing to another cough.

One of the battle droids complied, transmitting the command over its comm-link.

Seconds later, Grievous watched out the near window as his flagship opened fire on each of the thirty escape pods. The window of opportunity was short as the pods entered the upper atmosphere, but there were a series of bright flashes – marking explosions – before the rest of the vessels finally dropped out of sight.

There was no way to know to which group the Jedi's pod belonged – the destroyed, or the spared. Grievous looked out the window a few seconds more, then turned and stomped back down the corridor, the Sith and the droids parting to allow his passage.


	3. Awaken

**A/N:** Great thanks to Karen for breaking her fan fiction silence and leaving a very kind review. Thanks also to Sall for the review.

The frenetic action of the opening two chapters gets its resolution here, and then it's on to business.

As always, I am extremely appreciative of reviews -- criticism, praise, questions, suggestions... you name it! So, do leave me one if you would, and I hope you enjoy this new installment.

* * *

It was a slow struggle out of darkness. The Force was coiled around him, and he had to unwind it if he was to wake. It wasn't a task the non-sensitive could understand. The Force was heavier and more metallic than most knew, and to deny it – even in slumber – took more will than most could conjure.

He heard sounds nearby, voices speaking softly. He didn't recognize them, but they didn't sound particularly suspicious, or given to doing harm.

And with jumbled thoughts and slightly blurred vision, he emerged at last from sleep's chasm.

His groan drew the attention of a man and a woman he didn't know, who appeared above him moments later.

The man, of average stature, looked to be in his mid-twenties, or maybe as old as thirty if he was the type who aged well. His handsome face showed signs of battle – scraped in a couple places – and the beginnings of a beard, as if he hadn't shaved in two or three days. Bright blue eyes, dulled by fatigue, looked down on him kindly.

"Hello," he greeted softly, the word uttered with a Coruscanti accent a bit thicker than Obi-Wan's. "Try t'take it easy, friend. Your body took quite a shock."

The Jedi squinted against the light, which though dim compared to the sun's illumination outside, still felt as knives to his concussed head. He clumsily lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

"Who are you?"

With a tired smile, the man held out his hand.

"I'm Miler Crata…" he said, awkwardly withdrawing the hand when Obi-Wan didn't shake it. "I'm a, ah… Lieutenant with the 301st."

Obi-Wan nodded a moment, as if his mind needed extra time to register the information. Then he finally lowered his hand, his eyes beginning to adjust to the light, though his head still ached from it.

"The 301st. That's Saesee Tiin's legion, isn't it?"

Miler nodded pleasantly.

"Yeah, that's right. Hell o'a pilot, that one. Though it scared me half t'death t'meet him. Horns an' all."

Obi-Wan nodded, as if he was listening when he wasn't. He leaned forward, trying to sit up, and though the young soldier admonished him, he assisted him in the effort.

"Come on now. Don't push it too hard. I didn't have much bacta t'give you, I'm sorry to say."

For the first time, as he found his bearings, the Jedi's muddled mind recalled the details of his mission aboard Grievous' ship. The events bled together, the distinct stretches of time playing overtop one another, and one word echoed through his skull.

"_Padme_!" he exclaimed, shrugging Miler's hand off and looking about the room with great distress.

Miler grabbed him by the shoulders to try to keep him from standing, and the woman stepped in front of him, holding her hands out placatingly.

"It's all right," she said quickly. "She's all right. She's resting in the next room."

That seemed for the moment to satisfy Obi-Wan, who stilled his frantic movements and sighed, lifting a hand up to push some hair back off of his forehead. He took a long, calming breath, then looked up at the portly, middle-aged woman, whose soft, round face reminded him of the shallow, fractured memories he had of his own mother.

His face must have betrayed the question on his mind, because she answered before he'd even thought to ask it.

"My name's Leona Voll. This is my apartment here. I apologize that it's rather a modest space, but you'll be safe here for the time-being."

"She's a friend of my sister's," Miler explained. "I was sent to do reconnaissance on the Sith fleet about two days ago. My scout ship was shot down on the edge of Quiren City. It was rather fortuitous, actually. With the Sith in control of the planet now, I don't suppose anyone but Leona would take in a Republic fugitive."

Obi-Wan rubbed one temple with a calloused hand.

"Fortune and its opposite are seldom random," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"The Force brought us here for a reason, I believe."

"What reason?"

The Jedi shrugged cryptically, lifting his head.

"That remains to be seen," he said, bracing his hands on his knees and slowly pushing himself to his feet.

Miler and Leona assisted him, keeping hold of him once he was standing. Obi-Wan swayed momentarily, but didn't falter. He looked upon them earnestly.

"Can you take me to Padme, please?"

The woman nodded indulgently, leading him out of one modest room, down a hallway, and into another that looked much the same. The walls were hardly adorned, save for a sundry smattering of decorative pieces that were likely gifts received over a long span of time, as there was no cohesive theme amongst them or in their arrangement.

Padme lay supine on a small, clean bed, covered by a thin white sheet from the stomach down. She looked peaceful, but his eyes were drawn to the laceration just below her hairline on one side of her forehead.

He crossed the room slowly, still cognizant of the pain in his head and hip.

The mattress sunk slightly as he sat down on the edge of the bed, inspecting her cut more closely as he touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Despite the knowledge that she was safe and very much all right, his heart couldn't help but sink as his eyes scanned every inch of the angry red skin.

She'd confided to him once that one of her greatest fears was disfigurement. Indeed, while he'd seen her fearlessly negotiate in the chambers of the Senate and stare evil men in the eye and hold her ground, he'd also seen the devastated look in her eyes when – weeks after she'd cut her arm in a minor speeder accident – she realized that the flesh had scarred, and that the mark would always be there.

This cut on her forehead didn't pose any danger. It was closed now, and would heal in its own time. But without more bacta, and soon, it was sure to leave a scar. That bothered him more than it should have.

He glanced back at Miler and Leona.

"You're certain you've no more bacta?"

Leona shook her head, looking mildly confused.

"No, I'm… sorry, there's none. But I assure you she's well. There's no danger in not having any right now."

Obi-Wan smiled gently, thinking that perhaps he'd sounded demanding or accusatory. That certainly wasn't his intention. She'd shown him such kindness.

"I know. I apologize if I sound ungrateful. It's just that…" He couldn't bring himself to finish explaining, feeling somehow embarrassed. "Nevermind then. I appreciate everything you've done for us."

"Of course," Leona said warmly. "I am no friend to the Sith. They loom above as a mynock does the dead. I only wish I could do more to help your cause."

Obi-Wan was moved to reassure her, but before he could do so, a familiar droid appeared from the hallway, forcing his way between Leona and Miler and rolling into the small bedroom.

"R2," he smiled. "I knew they couldn't keep you down."

The droid beeped a similar greeting, expressing his relief to see his Master. It was things like that – the seeming expression of emotion – that led Obi-Wan to protect him from memory-wipes. It would be taking something that wasn't his to take; he was as alive as anyone else.

Miler watched the interaction with curiosity before offering, "He took a beating, but he came through all right. Matter'a fact, he was the only one we didn't need t'carry."

"How did you find us in the first place?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Your escape pod crashed not far from here. We heard the commotion, and I went to see what happened. When I saw that it was you, I pulled you right out. And Leona came and dragged out your friend."

"When you saw that it was me? You recognized me?"

"Of course. I see you in the hologram briefings all the time. You're one of our greatest warriors, General."

"Yes, well, let's not stray into hyperbole," Obi-Wan replied self-deprecatingly, rising up from the mattress and speaking again before Miler could respond, "Now, is there a Medical Center around here, or a supply store?"

Leona shook her head.

"If you're looking for more bacta, you won't find any. The Sith are controlling its distribution from designated military posts, and they're only giving it out upon proof of dire need."

Obi-Wan frowned.

"Surely something's slipped through the cracks, or was hidden away by someone before the Sith took over."

Miler opened his mouth to speak, but Leona cut him off.

"Don't," she said. "It's not a good idea."

"If the General requires it, then he should know that – "

"– And what happens when the both of you go and get yourselves killed – "

" – Don't be so dramatic, Leona. We'll just have to be – "

Obi-Wan cleared his throat, bringing their argument to an abrupt end. He patiently looked between them, speaking evenly.

"Would either of you care to explain what it is you're talking about?"

Miler ignored Leona's disapproving look.

"There are… unofficial channels on Sarna. You can find a lot of things that aren't to be found that way."

"A black market?"

"Something like that."

"Where do we find them?"

"The same place you find outlaws of any sort," Miler said with a mild smirk. "The cantina."

"Is it far?"

"Not far. A few blocks perhaps."

Leona took a step toward Obi-Wan, her look of disapproval replaced by one of concern.

"These are bad people. They'll kill you without a second thought, and they can draw you unwanted attention. Are you _absolutely_ certain this is necessary?"

The Jedi looked away momentarily. If he was honest, the answer was an emphatic 'no.' There was no legitimate justification for risking exposure on the hope that Padme's healing wound wouldn't scar. It was totally irrational that he was even considering it. Valuing the mission below a three-inch spot of flesh? The act was frankly beneath him.

But then he remembered her expression years ago, after the accident, and his ludicrous choice was made.

"We'll be careful," Obi-Wan assured her, before joking, "And in any case, the unsavory are my preferred company."

"Maybe I should go alone," Miler said. "We don't want any of the Sith to recognize you."

Obi-Wan shook his head, as if it were a frivolous thing.

"The common soldier won't know me. I'm not particularly concerned."

Miler smiled at the Jedi's confidence. He'd have expected nothing less of the legendary Negotiator.

"You should at leas' change. Even the common soldier can recognize a Jedi cloak."

Obi-Wan nodded, turning to R2 when the droid beeped at him.

"Sorry, little one. You'll have to stay here."

This didn't sit well with his small companion.

"I'll be fine, R2. Honestly, you make it sound as if I can't put my boots on without your help."

The spurned droid rolled off in a huff, as a teenaged Anakin might have.

The Jedi felt his stomach tighten at the mere thought of his former apprentice, but forced the feeling into a separate place, to be dealt with later. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

Taking one last glance at Padme, Obi-Wan turned back to face Miler.

"All right. Let's get to it then."


	4. Bargain

**A/N:** Thanks to gidgey for the review.

I can't assert with any certainty that updates will remain as frequent as they've been; it just seems to be flowing right now, and I've been lucky to have some down time to spend writing.

As always, I appreciate reviews. So, if you're following along, take a second and let me know what you think. Thank you kindly, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter.

* * *

Obi-Wan hadn't felt so out of his element in as long as he could recall.

It wasn't the sordid band of cretins littering the cantina, or even the planet itself – which he'd not stepped foot on prior to his crashing – but rather the clothes on his body, which were so unlike the attire of a Jedi that he felt as if he were naked entirely.

The bar was a predictable display of sentient heterogeneity. Creatures of all shapes and creeds sat drinking at the counter or at tables, stood eyeing passersby, and whispered conspiratorially in darkened corners.

"Jus' like I remember it," Miler said, a small but genuine smile on his face.

"Been away for a while?"

"I haven't been here since I was a teenager."

Obi-Wan frowned.

"Your parents let you come here?"

Miler shook his head casually, his eyes scanning the room.

"No, my parents died a while before that. My sister and I…" He paused. "… found employment here."

Realization dawned on the Jedi after a moment.

"You were couriers, weren't you?"

"Yeah. Weapons, spice, death sticks."

"Death sticks? Those things will kill you, you know."

Miler smirked.

"Yeah, well, the types of guys who used em' prob'ly didn't have so long to live anyway," he said cavalierly, taking in Obi-Wan's raised eyebrow before gesturing toward an Ithorian sitting alone in a corner booth. "That's the man we're looking for."

"An Ithorian?" the Jedi asked incredulously. "They're the last people to do anything illegal."

Miler grinned slyly.

"That's what everyone else used t'say. I guess it's why he's still in business."

"Fair enough, Lieutenant. Lead on."

The soldier stepped out in front, carving a path through the sea of species. Obi-Wan followed behind him, using his peripheral vision to take stock of all the characters he passed, assessing potential dangers. Some of them were phony tough guys, puffing their chests out. Some of them were wolves in sheep's clothing. And still others were fools walking crooked paths that wouldn't lead them anywhere.

When they finally crossed the cantina, and came to stand before the Ithorian, Obi-Wan hung back a bit, standing, while Miler sat down in the chair across from the long-necked alien as if invited.

"What do you think you're doing?" the Ithorian bellowed stereophonically from his two mouths. "Have you no idea who I am?"

Miler smiled, leaning back in his chair.

"Relax, Rondo. I want to talk some business."

The Ithorian squinted the eyes on either side of his t-shaped head, giving the soldier a scrutinizing once-over. It was few seconds before he finally pieced things together, but when he did, he let out his species' equivalent of a laugh.

"It's you. The Crata boy," Rondo said with some amazement. "I told you you'd be back."

Miler rolled his eyes.

"I'm not looking for a job, Rondo. I'm looking for something else."

The Ithorian eyed him suspiciously, then glanced at Obi-Wan briefly.

"What do you want?"

"Bacta," Miler said.

"Bacta? That's all? You're wasting my time."

The Jedi took a step closer, bracing his hands on the table and leaning down.

"We will pay you handsomely, of course."

"How handsomely?" Rondo asked, doing his best to sound disinterested, but failing.

"One vile. 500 credits."

Miler coughed upon hearing the unexpectedly high number, lifting a fist to his mouth for a moment.

"Did you say 500?" he asked.

Obi-Wan nodded, fixing him with a glare that demanded compliance. To his credit, the soldier recovered quickly, forcing a neutral expression before he turned back to Rondo and nodded.

"Yeah, that's right. 500," Miler said, trying to sound as sure of it as the Jedi. "So, what will it be, Rondo?"

The Ithorian considered the offer, the gears turning behind his eyes. It was more than fair compensation; in fact, he'd be ripping them off. He was of a mind to accept the deal, and was about to verbalize such, but he was denied the opportunity.

From out of the crowd emerged a pair of male Twi'leks, one blue and the other green. Miler and Obi-Wan glanced up as they approached the table, high-end blasters visible in holsters on the men's hips. They looked to the Jedi to be bounty hunters.

Obi-Wan threw Miler a measured look, and the street-wise soldier nodded and rose, taking a few steps away from the table to stand beside the bearded Master, making way for the Twi'leks, who bypassed the Republic fugitives without a single glance, stopping beside the table and starting down intently at the Ithorian.

Rondo, unfazed and annoyed, eyed the men irritably.

"What do you want?" he demanded. "I'm in the middle of a transaction."

The green Twi'lek smiled disingenuously, glancing at Obi-Wan.

"My sincerest apologies. This shall be quick, I assure you."

"Of course," the Jedi replied evenly.

"Thank you."

The blue Twi'lek, not quite as patient (or perhaps just not as fond of foreplay as his companion), regarded Rondo with indurate eyes that hinted at a past they'd shared.

"Neecho was not happy to learn that you cheated him," he said, the muscles in his face twitching.

Rondo, conceited and self-assured in nearly every moment, sobered at the mention of his sometimes-rival, sometimes-partner. He'd not suspected that the Twi'leks, freelancers for as long as he'd known them, were working for the drug lord.

"Neecho? You work for Neecho now? Whatever he's paying you, I'm sure we can reach an agreement."

"Neecho is the brutal kind, but he always pays the wage he owes," the green Twi'lek said, that creepy, mirthless smile not leaving his face. "You, though… you're too stupid to keep your own people happy, Rondo. I'm surprised no one killed you sooner."

Obi-Wan's chest tightened. It was clear now what would follow. He and Miler could only watch helplessly. Getting involved in this matter would surely blow their cover, and as sad as it was to say, Rondo was no innocent man.

The blue Twi'lek pulled his gun from his holster, pressing it against the center of the Ithorian's head, watching gleefully as Rondo's eyes crossed on either side to look at the barrel of the blaster.

"Bye, Rondo."

The shot killed him instantly, the blaster bolt peeling back some of the creature's brown flesh and splattering some of the muscle and cartilage within, littering the table and the blue Twi'lek with black and green tissue gobs.

With a glance at Obi-Wan, who stared back dispassionately, the green Twi'lek shoved Rondo's mangled corpse backward, watching as the Ithorian slid down in his chair so that his lower half was touching the floor.

Then the bounty hunters made their exit, the crowd parting on either side to allow them through. But in a sickening and unsurprising display, the moment the Twi'leks were gone, everyone returned to their previous affairs as if nothing had happened at all, and no one – not even the cantina employees – bothered to come see to the Ithorian's carcass.

Obi-Wan turned to Miler coolly.

"Well, that went well," he deadpanned.

The soldier glanced back at Rondo's body, the sight surreal to him. When he was a kid, he'd thought the criminal entrepreneur invincible. But this was a dangerous galaxy, he knew, and the Ithorian had had it coming.

"We should get out of here," he said. "Word will pass to the Sith soon enough, and they'll come to investigate."

Obi-Wan nodded his agreement, suppressing a rush of melancholy as he realized that there'd be no more bacta for Padme. He felt guilty at the thought; a man was dead, and here he was fretting over a would-be scar.

This time, the Jedi led the way through the crowd, though he didn't bother to observe the people who comprised it. They were all a faceless mob to him now, the same as Grievous' droids.

When they made it across to the other side, Obi-Wan headed to the door, Miler beside him.

They were both surprised when a man emerged from behind them, circling past them to block their path.

"Excuse me," the Jedi said, trying to move around him.

"Hey, hold on a second," the man replied, taking a step to the left to stop him again. "What's the hurry?"

Miler fixed him with a threatening look.

"I don't s'pose that's any of your business, is it?"

The man, a tall, rugged type in his late thirties, looked back at him with barely-open and unimpressed brown eyes that made clear his lack of intimidation. His hair, lazily slicked back, gave him the look of someone who was selling something. And it just so happened he was.

"Oh, calm down a second, tough guy," he mocked. "I'm trying to help you guys out here."

"Is that right?"

"Yes. I heard you talking to Rondo over there, before the whole… whatever that was."

"And?" Obi-Wan asked patiently.

"And I think I can help you out."

It was clear the Jedi's interest was piqued, so he continued, "It just so happens I might have a little something for you."

"Bacta," Miler concluded.

The man shrugged.

"Well, close enough."

"What do you mean 'close enough?'" Obi-Wan asked. "Either you have bacta or you don't."

The man rolled his eyes.

"Look, I hate to break it to you, jack," he said, his plain Corellian accent sounding patronizing, "but Rondo didn't have any bacta either."

"How do you know?"

"Because _I'm_ the one who supplied him. With kolto."

Miler frowned.

"Kolto's about half as strong as bacta. And it smells worse too."

"Yeah, well, beggars can't be choosers, can they?" the man asked, folding his arms across his chest comfortably.

Obi-Wan sighed, eyeing him cautiously. The man looked every part the classic hustler, from his "helpful" attitude to his clothes – a collared white shirt only half-way buttoned, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a pair of tattered brown slacks, with a frayed holster carrying an old model, obsolete blaster.

But he offered an opportunity just the same.

"All right," the Jedi said carefully. "How much?"

The man took a quick look in every direction, as if to make certain there were no eavesdroppers. When he replied, his voice was hushed, and the two fugitives had to lean in to hear him.

"I don't want your money. I want something else."

"What's that?"

"Let's just say I've got incentive to get off this rock, and I need a little help doing it."

"You don't have a ship?"

"No. Not like it would matter, though. The only ships that have take-off clearance are Sith ships."

"Then how exactly are you planning to leave?" Miler asked.

"We can talk about that while we get your kolto."

The man smiled surreptitiously, and usually that look alone would have been enough to make Obi-Wan disengage. But the fellow had the kolto (or so he claimed) and a plan to leave Sarna (or so he claimed), and even if he seemed to radiate artifice, the Jedi knew that he had no choice but to see where this led.

"All right," Obi-Wan conceded, rubbing the hairs on one cheek. "But I assure you, we'll not be marks for an idiot's scheme."

The barterer wore an innocent expression.

"Then it's a good thing this ain't a scheme, and I'm not an idiot."

"There's still plenty of hours in the day," Miler quipped, following the men out of the cantina.


	5. Below

**A/N:** Many thanks to Guest, Seren, Gidgey, and Draconian for the reviews. I am always appreciative of them.

I hope you enjoy this installment!

* * *

It was a much longer trip than the man had implied.

They reached the warehouse quickly enough, but their final destination was several stories below ground. He led them down an old mine shaft, left over from a time long passed when the Sarnans' rare ores were still plentiful.

When they reached the bottom, after crawling one after the other through a man-shaped opening and emerging into the core of the mine, it was clear that this place had long, long since been stripped. As far as the eye could see, all there was was worthless rock and the thin metal shell outlining the tunnel – with burning lights still hanging down every few feet – left behind by saddened miners hundreds of years in the past.

"Is there any particular reason we had to burrow into th'planet mantle here?" Miler groused, brushing some dust off his pants.

The man shrugged with an air of annoyance, looking put-upon, but he answered just the same.

"I don't have the government or Rondo or the Sith getting into my business this far down. Most people don't know this is still here, and the ones that do wouldn't think to look."

"All the space you could ever ask for to stockpile too," Obi-Wan remarked absently, doing his best not to wince as he stretched his ailing hip.

With an affirmative nod, the man gestured to their left, beginning to walk toward that end of the tunnel. The Jedi and the soldier fell into step behind him.

It was strange, the ways of life and the Force.

Two days ago, Obi-Wan was at a strategy meeting with Yoda and Ki-Adi-Mundi, plotting the Sarna assault and Padme's rescue. Now here he was, half a mile underground, with a military grunt he'd only just met and a local scoundrel whose intentions eluded him.

"You have a name?" the Jedi asked.

"Yeah. Do you?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Good to know," the man gibed. "I feel closer to you already."

Miler shook his head.

"I've known a lot of people like you, you know. And none of them were as clever as they thought they were."

"I've known a lot of people too, and all of them were more clever than – "

Obi-Wan's smooth voice interrupted.

"Gentlemen, let's maintain some pretense of civility, shall we?"

"Whatever you say, boss," the man sarcastically capitulated, coming to a stop beside a rickety metal storage cabinet that stretched from the ground to the ceiling. "I'm nothing if not accommodating."

He reached out to grasp the cabinet's two rusty handles, the door hinges whining as he opened them. Inside were two full, human-sized cylindrical kolto tanks, the translucent white solution bubbling in a few places, but otherwise calm.

"This good enough?" the man asked.

Obi-Wan blinked, surprised at the quantity before him. He thought about Padme's three-inch scar, and suddenly felt silly for all the trouble he'd gone to. He tried not to let on, though.

"Yeah," he said. "That… ought to do it."

Miler hid a smile, but remained silent.

The man shut the doors to the cabinet, then turned around and leaned back against it, crossing his arms.

"All right then. Let's talk about your end of things."

"I'm listening," the Jedi said.

"Well, like I said before, only ticket outta town's a Sith ship with the proper codes."

"You can't just get the code and transmit it from another ship?"

"No, they've been burned too often with that little trick. If you broadcast a code from a non-Sith ship now, the authentication process is longer by half and a hell of a lot harder to bluff. You get yourself a Sith ship, though, and all you've gotta do is furnish the code. No audio either, just text."

Obi-Wan nodded.

"Okay. You need a Sith ship then. How do you plan to get it?"

"I've got a way into the military compound just east of here."

"What is it?"

"It just so happens this tunnel runs underneath there. And there's an old service shaft that leads all the way up to the computer mainframe room."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem is they obviously built over the entrance. You get to the top of the shaft, and it's solid ferroconcrete."

Miler shook his head.

"This sounds like an exc'lent plan so far."

"Put a leash on the gizka, would you?" the man asked Obi-Wan, ignoring the soldier's glare as he returned to his exposition. "Anyway, point is, I can get through that easy with an IED or a mine, but wouldn't you know it – they tend to notice when part of their foundation explodes."

The Jedi narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

"You want a distraction."

"That'd have t'be _some_ distraction," Miler said.

"It just so happens I…" The man paused, choosing his words carefully. "… acquired an airspeeder."

"'Acquired,'" Miler repeated with some disdain. "Is that what they call it these days?"

"I don't know what you're insinuating, but I'm sure I'm insulted by it."

Once more, Obi-Wan was forced to redirect the bickering pair.

"So, this speeder. What use is it?"

"You rig it up with some explosives," the man said, "and put it on auto-pilot. It collides with the compound, and _bang_! You've got yourself an entrance."

"That's a bit blunt," Obi-Wan remarked.

"Yeah, well, it'll do the deed. You guys follow after it and keep the security forces occupied, while I infiltrate from the shaft down here. The landing strip isn't far from the mainframe, so if you guys do your job, I should be able to get there."

Miler wasn't sure whether to laugh or clock him.

"What? _That's_ your plan? 'Hey, guys, you take on a Sith army and I'll just slip out.'"

Obi-Wan thought for a moment, looking for a reason to defend the smuggler's scheme, but finding there was none.

"I'm afraid I have to concur. I assured you previously that we'd not be patsies for you."

The man gasped, as if offended.

"Patsies? Who's askin' for patsies? You're two virile fellas in the prime of your life. Are you saying you can't handle a few clumsy Sith guards?"

"I'm saying that your plan is entirely lacking in subtlety."

"You have a better one?"

"Not presently, but I no doubt could construct one."

"Fine then. Put your credits where your mouth is, jack. You show me something better, and that's how we'll roll."

Obi-Wan looked away for a moment, his eyes finding Miler's for a time, though the soldier's expression was unreadable. His trust for their trading partner was flaccid at best, but he sensed nothing deceptive about the man's statements, only his desperation to leave this planet.

He looked back at him and nodded.

"All right then. You take a couple vials of kolto out of one of those tanks, and we'll all go back to the apartment. We can plan from there."

"A couple of vials?" the man frowned. "You're doing all this for a couple vials? What are you treating, a stomach ache?"

Obi-Wan dipped his head to scrub a hand over his face, releasing his irritation into the Force. He felt so tired. But there was much to be done.

"Just take two vials, all right?"

"Whatever you say, boss."

* * *

Leona wore a stern expression as Miler led Obi-Wan and the man into her apartment. The Jedi could immediately sense her anger at the nameless third party's unsolicited presence. She turned on Miler instantly.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" she asked sharply, glaring in a manner familiar to the young soldier. "You come back here after five hours, and you bring the cantina riffraff with you? And without even asking me."

"Leona – "

"Don't say anything, Miler. Don't say a thing because you'll only make it worse." She paused, letting out a fatigued sigh and shaking her head. "I'm more than happy to aid you, and to help General Kenobi. But I've got a life of my own to protect, and I can't have you bringing – "

The man, who'd stood back and watched the exchange with interest, narrowed his eyes in realization as he turned toward the Jedi.

"Wait a minute," he said, thoughtlessly interrupting his host, "you're _Kenobi_? I'm working with a damn _Jedi_? Were you planning on sharing that at some point?"

Obi-Wan shrugged placidly.

"Does it change how badly you need to get off this planet?"

The man grunted.

"Whatever. Jedi, Sith, janitor – doesn't matter what you are, but you better hold up your end."

Miler, still wilting under Leona's scrutinizing and unhappy gaze, stepped in between the men, gesturing down the hallway.

"Let's… get this kolto to your companion, shall we?"

Obi-Wan nodded his assent, following him down the hallway. He thought to apologize to Leona, to try to soften her anger at Miler given that this was more the Jedi's doing than his, but decided it would be more prudent to let the matter pass. It wouldn't do any good.

Miler led the way into the room where Padme had lay, and much to his and the Jedi's surprise, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, her small booted feet touching the floor.

She looked tired, and appeared confused a moment at the sight of the soldier, but when Obi-Wan followed after him and stepped into plain view, she was awash in a feeling of relief, injudiciously standing and hurrying toward him, gripping him in a weak hug before he could react.

"Where have you been?" she mumbled against his shirt, her distant voice sounding irritated to Obi-Wan's ears.

The Jedi, though surprised by her intimate display and at least mildly uncomfortable with it, loosely closed his arms around her. He had to admit it was nothing short of pleasant to feel her head pressed against him as it was, but this certainly wasn't a convenient occasion for him to nurture such thoughts, so after a moment, he gently pulled back, relieved when she followed suit.

Before Obi-Wan could answer her, the man stepped out from behind him and Miler, wearing a hircine smirk so full of pomposity that it nearly blew Padme back to look at him.

The smuggler was the blunt sort, but he was also a student of nuance. Having watched her display with the Jedi, and seeing the cut on her forehead, he immediately knew the catalyst for Obi-Wan's desperate search for bacta.

His smirk morphed into his approximation of a charming grin as he met the Senator's eyes.

"Darlin', he went out searching for a charming entrepreneur who could come to your rescue."

"Yeah, but we found him instead," Miler quipped.

Padme frowned as she looked between the two men. The second one, the younger of them, appeared to be the soldier Leona had described to her in the hours previous. This other one, though, was unknown to her, and she looked to Obi-Wan for clarification.

"It's… quite a long story," the Jedi uttered self-consciously, glancing back at Miler. "But if you gentlemen would excuse us momentarily…"

Thankfully, the soldier was not deaf to the cue, gesturing for the man to follow him out.

"Aye, we'll give you a minute," Miler said with a small smile. "C'mon now."

Obi-Wan expected that the man might refuse, or at least depart with a crass or flippant remark, but much to the Master's surprise, he did none of those things, merely nodding in compliance with welcome and surprising tact.

The door slid shut when the men were gone, and for a moment, the Jedi could hear them talking to Leona, but it wasn't long before the voices quieted, then disappeared.

He turned back to find Padme staring at him expectantly, arms akimbo.

"All right, who was that, Obi-Wan?"

"He's an… associate."

"An _associate_?"

"More or less. We've agreed to work together for the time being."

"What does he want?"

"He just wants to leave Sarna."

Padme regarded him admonishingly.

"So, what… is he a murderer, a drug dealer, or a slave-trader?"

"Perhaps all those things. Criminals these days like to diversify," Obi-Wan remarked dryly.

Padme fixed him with a glare that made clear she wasn't amused. But it only served to make him smile, which frustrated her more.

He tried to muster a contrite look – not really succeeding – as he diverted her attention by taking hold of her arm in a gentle grip.

"What are you doing?"

"Here, sit down. I need to take a look at your head."

"My head?"

She reached up a hand out of instinct, her breath hitching when it glided across her forehead and found the cut there. He spoke before she could.

"Don't worry," he said, leading her to the bed, where she dutifully sat down beside him. "It's not bad. And I have something for it."

He pulled one of the kolto vials from a pouch on his belt, and reached across the senator for a moment to pick up a bandage Leona had left for him. She self-consciously fingered the laceration, frowning.

"It's not going to scar," he assured her gently, wetting the pad of the bandage with a generous amount of medicine.

Padme felt all at once humiliated and comforted that he'd guessed so easily at what was troubling her. It was amazing how kindly he'd said it, and without the teasing tone he'd have used with someone else. This quiet voice seemed reserved for her, and she thought that she quite liked that.

She wasn't sure where to look with her eyes, so she settled for focusing on her lap when he held her head in place with one hand, and gently placed the thin bandage over the cut with his other hand. He softly apologized when she winced, then carefully pressed down on the adhesive edges to make sure it would stay in place.

The one hand lingered on her head a moment.

"There," he said. "It'll be gone before you know it."

She lifted her gaze from her lap, surprised to see that his face was so close to hers. He was looking at her curiously, as if searching for something and not finding it. It was a microcosm of his life, she thought: he never seemed to uncover the things he sought.

He finally pulled back, fighting the urge to clear his throat.

"Thank you," she said, though it sounded like an afterthought, for her mind was occupied by something else. It finally clicked into place – the pieces she'd gathered from Leona and from Obi-Wan, and the presence of the man. "You made a deal with this man to get bacta."

He shifted self-consciously.

"More or less."

The uneasy reaction told her all she needed to know.

"Just because you knew I'd – "

He was grateful that she didn't get to finish her thought, as the door slid open to reveal an unannounced R2D2, who made haste rolling into the room, immediately turning on Obi-Wan with a series of chiding beeps.

"Oh, hello, R2…" He paused to let the droid finish. "I wasn't gone that long. You're exaggerating."

R2 disagreed.

"Yes, I know your circuits keep a perfect account of time. I'm just saying that – "

The droid reiterated his well-meaning concern.

Obi-Wan frowned affectionately, turning to look at Padme, who smiled back at him.

"Do you hear the way he talks to me?"

"You'll live," she said, her tone less dismissive than her words. "And anyway, he's right. Now what did you get yourself into while you were gone?"

The Jedi sighed.

Then he proceeded to explain himself until the young woman was satisfied.


	6. Schemes

**A/N:** Salutations. Sorry for my delay in updating, but life keeps me busy, as I'm sure it does all of you.

As always, I'm greatly appreciative of feedback. So do me a favor and leave a review letting me know how this chapter turned out. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

"It's none of our business."

The man smirked, leaning back in his chair, feet propped up on a table.

"Just because something ain't your business, doesn't mean it ain't there," he said.

Miler crossed his arms.

"Nor does it mean y'should talk about it."

"Lighten up, kid, would you? All I'm saying is he's got the hots for her. What's wrong with that? So do I. And unless your interests aren't traditional, I'm betting you do too."

"My interests are none'a your business," Miler replied stiffly. "'Less it ain't worth bein' quiet to save yourself some bleeding."

The man rolled his eyes.

"Kid, let me give you a little life lesson here. There's more to being tough than glaring and talking big."

"How 'bout a demonstration then?"

"Try it," the man challenged with a smug shake of his head, utterly unconcerned. "I'm begging you."

Miler leaned back against the wall opposite him coolly. He smiled a thin smile at the smuggler.

"I've got a lesson for you too," he said. "The more times some dumb bloke begs ya to hit him, the more sure y'can be he's a craven coward."

Something flashed in the man's eyes, his calm exterior faltering for a moment, but before he could utter a reply, the door opened, retracting into the wall to reveal Obi-Wan, Padme, and R2, who entered the room single-file.

The Jedi looked between the men knowingly, the pair's tension plain. From the moment of their introduction, they'd been at each other's throats. That in itself was a fascinating thing, as Miler had seemed to Obi-Wan a placid soul in their prior interactions. The dichotomy was understandable, though. The smuggler was the goading kind; his tireless cynicism was hopelessly provocative, infuriating to those with the nerve to believe in something.

"Hello, ma'am," Miler greeted, pushing himself away from the wall and doing his best to appear professional. "Are you feeling all right?"

Padme smiled thinly.

"Fine, thank you..." She paused. "Lieutenant, is it?"

He nodded.

"Lieutenant Crata. Miler Crata. It's my great pleasure t'meet you, Senator."

"Likewise, Lieutenant," Padme replied, a grateful glint in her eyes. "I understand we have you to thank for saving us."

Miler ducked his head in something approaching embarrassment, and she couldn't help but think how much his humble expression resembled the one Obi-Wan often wore.

"Just doing what I could, ma'am."

The Jedi took a seat beside the smuggler, taking note of the sardonic amusement on the man's face. He quickly spoke, lest the man spit out an insult.

"Though I've no desire to do away with pleasantries, it would be prudent if we got on with business," he said.

The smirk which passed across the man's face seemed less mocking than his usual twitches, and he nodded, replying, "Sure thing, Boss."

He reached into the pouch laying on the table, extracting from it a small, circular holo-projector. Then he stood, stretching his back languidly, before placing the projector on a second table in the middle of the room. He switched it on and stood back, watching as the device flickered to life, rendering a holographic blueprint of the Sith military compound.

"All right, here it is," the man said, reclaiming his seat. "There's a couple blind spots, but this is most of it."

Obi-Wan frowned.

"_Most_ of it?"

"I took it off a guard's body. Blaster shot corrupted some of the data."

"Charming," Miler mumbled.

Obi-Wan stood and took a step toward the hologram, examining it closely. This wasn't the first blueprint of a Sith base he'd seen, and most of them had similar designs. He pinpointed which pieces were missing in short order.

"Well, no harm done," he said. "It's missing the armory, which should be some place over here – " He gestured to a point between the auxiliary control center and the commissary. "– And the crew quarters, I believe."

The man raised an eyebrow.

"Did the mystical Force whisper that in your ear?"

"Nothing so impressive," Obi-Wan replied. "Sidious worships efficiency. Most of these compounds are laid out exactly the same."

The man nodded, then stood again and approached the hologram, gesturing to a series of structures around back, the image distorted as his hand passed through the light.

"The ship bays are right here. They're guarded around the clock by two troopers each. But they'll abandon their posts when word comes down there's been an incursion."

"Are they really that stupid?" Miler asked.

He was surprised when it was Padme who answered him, as she stepped away from the door and into the discussion.

"I've learned through my ordeals never to underestimate their capacity for idiocy."

She was mostly joking – Miler thought so, at least – but there was still something regal and commanding about her delivery. It was apparent to him in that one sentence, delivered with a dry tongue and a jocund warmth in her eyes, why she was so persuasive on the floor of the senate and why the Jedi looked on her with a hidden flow of mirth.

"Well, though I agree with the sentiment," Obi-Wan interjected, "I fear it is incumbent upon me not to _over_estimate that capacity either. One can't know how every man will react when calamity is upon them. We should proceed under the assumption that the bays will all be guarded."

Miler nodded his agreement. But the man rolled his eyes.

"This ain't my first dance either, Boss. It's a waste of energy to worry about them."

"You'll find that I prefer planning for every eventuality, to closing my eyes and hoping," Obi-Wan quipped.

The man blinked, regarding him harshly.

"Is that a fact?"

With a small, amused smile, perhaps born of the few untainted memories the man's glare conjured of his old apprentice, Obi-Wan turned away, walking the length of the room to the far wall, which he leaned back against with folded arms.

"Well," he said diplomatically, "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let's iron out the basics for now."

When the man relented after a moment with a disinterested shrug, Miler stepped forward, bending down to take a closer look at one of the compound's access points. It was a gated security station, where authorized landcraft could enter.

"What abou' here? We could doctor up some credentials an' slip inside."

Obi-Wan rubbed his beard thoughtfully.

"It would certainly be more innocuous than what our friend here had in mind."

The man shook his head with scarcely contained annoyance, readying to let slide from his tongue another disdaining barb.

But as is the universe's wicked, random way, he was to be denied the opportunity, the best laid schemes of mice and men about to go astray. How cruel life was. And abrupt.

The ears of the room's occupants were besieged in the next moments by the sound of loud, wailing sirens emanating from the street outside the apartment. To Obi-Wan and Padme and the man, the sound was foreign. Clearly alarming, but still foreign.

It wasn't new to Miler's ears, though.

He'd heard it a dozen times in school as a child, during disaster drills that when happening had been a fun diversion, but were presently reminders of the grimness of life. He could remember crouching down beneath his desk. It was funny now to think that he'd accepted his teachers' premise: hunker down beneath this small metal surface, and the coming catastrophe will surely spare you.

"Air raid," he murmured, springing to life.

Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes.

"What?"

"It's the air raid siren. Part of the automated defense system," Miler explained, swiftly moving past everyone to get to the door, hurrying through it when it opened for him, forcing his companions to follow after him. "Leona! Leona!"

The woman appeared in the hallway an instant later, hands shaking, her kindly face contorted in abject fear.

"Miler, what's happening? Why is the siren going? It's not – they're not – they wouldn't – "

The young soldier's hands on her arms halted her rambling.

"Leona, there's no time. We have t'hurry."

"But – "

"I want y'to gather all the credits and things ya can carry in a small bag. We have t'leave here."

He gave her a gentle shake to emphasize the point, and after a long, frightened moment, Leona finally nodded, turning in a daze and glancing about, as if she weren't at all acclimated to this place she'd lived for years and years and years, but it all came back to her a second later, and she disappeared into her bedroom.

"What's going on?" Padme asked earnestly. "I don't understand. The Sith? They're in control of the entire planet. What purpose is served in razing it?"

"I'm not the sort who likes t'ask why, ma'am. I'm more worried 'bout gettin' outta here."

Obi-Wan regarded him calmly, his voice showing but the barest hints of worry and strain.

"Can we go underground?"

"Well, we _could_," Miler replied, "but we'd be spendin' th'rest of our lives down there. I'll take my chances in the air."

The man emerged from out of sight.

"This doesn't change anything," he said. "It actually makes things easier. If the shit storm's coming down, then they'll be evacuating the compound."

For the very first time, Miler nodded his agreement with the man, without the faintest note of sarcasm.

"Aye, he's right. It's still our best bet."

Leona emerged from her bedroom, a half-closed satchel slung over her shoulder. Her trembling hands fumbled to secure the latch the rest of the way. Miler gently pulled her fingers away, securing it for her.

The sirens wailed on outside. They could hear panic in the streets.

"How long do we have?" Obi-Wan asked.

Miler opened his arms helplessly.

"No way'a knowin'. Thirty seconds, fifteen minutes. Haven't a clue."

The Jedi caught Padme's eye, absently admiring how composed she looked amidst this terrifying circumstance. He nodded at Miler.

"We'd best make haste then," he said, gesturing to the door. "We'll never make it on foot. We'll have to secure transportation."

"That won't be easy with all the crazies out there," the man remarked.

Obi-Wan's eyes darkened a shade.

"We'll do whatever we have to."

The cold practicality of those words surprised the man. But he was impressed to have heard them. It showed that the Jedi understood the realities of the galaxy, and knew that there was a limit to what virtue could bring someone. No one ever survived a wasteland of burning spires by holding fast to a moral compass that was spinning and spinning and spinning.

Miler glanced at each of his allies, then nodded toward the door.

"C'mon now," he said. "Before we all catch fire."


	7. Pandemonium

**A/N:** As Mr. Springsteen's song goes: Is there anybody alive out there? Great thanks to seren, who is always so generous and thoughtful with her reviews. To anyone else who is reading, but has yet to comment, I'd greatly appreciate some feedback. Complaints, praise, suggestions, points of confusion, etc. Just hit that 'review' button and let me know.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

The panicked masses ran wild in the street.

Men and women, young and old, some with children or friends or spouses, and some by their solitary selves, shouted and shook and scurried along – though some were landlocked by fear – hurrying home or to shelter or to the city underground, pushing and shoving and cursing any who stood in their way.

"It's coming!" an old vagrant screamed, shuffling toward them, his wrinkled face and tattered clothes covered in soot and grime. "The end is coming, as I foretold!"

The man rolled his eyes.

"Great. A townie prophet," he mumbled.

He and Obi-Wan tried to maneuver around him, but the vagrant moved to impede their path. When he blocked their way a second time, the Jedi looked on him impatiently.

"Sir, we haven't time to – "

"It's the _end of days_!" the lunatic shouted manically, eyes wide and dilated. "It's over! Your wretched lives! You've wrought the gods' wrath with your unbelief!"

Obi-Wan's calm demeanor nearly wavered.

"Sir," he spat tightly, "as I said – "

Before he could complete his sentence, his disreputable companion wound his arm back and punched the filthy straggler in the mouth. The would-be prophet spun from the force of the blow, then fell.

Obi-Wan glanced at the smuggler with a raised eyebrow.

The man merely smirked, and uttered in a way not unlike the Jedi's: "Tactile negotiation."

A retort rested on Obi-Wan's tongue, but he decided that enough time had been wasted, so he nodded, glancing down at the sprawled-out fanatic one last time before hurrying forward, his party in tow behind him.

They cut a choppy path through the mass of humanity, bumping and being bumped. Leona, being a heavy woman, wasn't knocked off-course. But Padme's frame was much slighter and she faltered a few times. When she nearly fell in the last instance, she felt Obi-Wan's hand grasp her arm to keep her upright, and the hand remained there as he led the group forward. And even here, even now when the sky could imminently fall, she thought about the way it felt, and wished his hand would slide down to cover hers. It didn't, though, and she forgot about it a moment later.

In the back, R2 took exception to the battering he received from bumping knees and wandering feet, and he showed no hesitation in lightly shocking with an electrical charge those passersby who particularly annoyed him.

The further they got away from the apartment, the bigger the logjam of people was, and the louder the sirens and voices were. The group had difficulty staying together, or even making out where they were.

Miler, on instinct more than anything, was the first to get his bearings. He recognized the dull maroon canopy of a Bith restaurant across from him. And he knew then what the building to its left would be.

"Interior!" he shouted from the back of the pack.

Padme was the only one who heard him, twisting back to glance at him.

"What?!" she asked over the roar, grunting as the sharp elbow of a passerby struck her.

Her yelled query drew the attention of the others.

"It's the Office of th'Interior!" Miler exclaimed, his voice already hoarse. "Government buildin'! There's a garage underneath! We can fin'a speeder!"

Obi-Wan had to strain his ears to the limits of reason, but he was confident he'd heard the words correctly. He nodded his ascent, changing the angle of their path toward the towering Interior building.

The walk was tortuous and bruising, not just physically, but mentally also for Obi-Wan, whose mind was besieged as it had been for minutes by the scattered, terrified thoughts of thousands who comprised the gridlocked foot traffic. Their terror just barely skimmed the top of his mind, ricocheting off at an angle and shooting back into the ether before he had a chance to really hear anything. All he could process were feelings – intensely felt ones, which mirrored Leona's just behind him. It was a lot take, the faceless fears of masses.

"Not much further!" Miler shouted to his companions, the building's golden-lettered title coming into view as they approached the façade.

Obi-Wan could feel the soldier's and Padme's relief as they closed in on their destination, but within himself there burned a different beast, as his acute awareness of danger summoned from him a heap of worry when he was struck by a glimpse of the future – the near future.

He could hear a voice speaking over a radio: "Kill as many as you can before the strike," it said; "the locals are making a run on the base," it said; "just kill everyone you can," it said. And whoever was listening was soon to comply.

His head whipped about, eyes frenetically scanning the area for the source of the danger. But he couldn't see anyone. Just the same formless mob all around him.

Padme, who through long and companionable meals and chats, as well as life-and-death drama, knew the Jedi as well as she supposed anyone did, sensed and saw reflected in his face a deep disquiet. She thought to inquire about it, to shout something out to him. But events moved too quickly for that.

"Down!" Obi-Wan screamed.

And in a blur she was on the ground, and his body smothered hers protectively.

Blaster bolts fanned through the crowd and indiscriminately struck pedestrians at different angles. Women, men, children – of every age, race, and creed – began to fall, some with but minor wounds, others dead before their bodies found the ground.

Miler and the man, possessing the respective instincts of a soldier and a scoundrel, had heeded the Jedi's warning in an instant. But their companion, that gentle, lumbering woman, whose reflexes had been dulled by years of relative safety, dropped not of her own accord to the street, but of a murderer's. Her eyes, touched by unblinking death, stared emptily into the sky above her, her chest and stomach bloodied by multiple blaster shots.

The soldier's eyes, darting about to check on his allies, fell with abhorred consternation on Leona's body. He scrambled over to her on his hands and knees, ignoring the pedestrian who tripped over his back and tumbled out of sight.

"Leona!" he murmured hoarsely, hovering over her with wandering hands that didn't know what to do. "No. No…"

His breath hitched as he pressed two fingers to her neck. It was an idiotic formality, really. She was as dead as million year-old light glimpsed through a telescope.

He stared down at her, shuddering. If this was what good deeds earned a person, then maybe the galaxy wasn't worth saving. What a waste of a lovely woman. He wasn't one to cry, but for a moment the act occurred to him.

The bodies which continued to fall all around him evaded his notice, as did the sound of Obi-Wan's lightsaber switching on, and the clear line of sight the Jedi now had through the dispersing crowd to the Sith troopers and droids who were perpetrating this massacre.

Lined up in a neat row, the half-dozen gun-wielding humans and the half-dozen chrome-tinted assassin droids laid down a wide field of continuous fire. It didn't require any particular skill. No marksmanship was necessary. A child could have done the deed, really, if not for the naïve integrity of youth – an act like this required a kind of callousness that only came with years.

Obi-Wan leapt forward toward the gunmen, so that he stood between them and the crowd – and more importantly Padme and the man and Miler and R2 – and he began to effortlessly deflect the shots sailing in his general direction.

The leader of the Sith soldiers took notice, furrowing his brow before declaring in a deploring growl, "It's a Jedi! Kill him, men! Kill him now!"

In instant, the entire might of the murderous dozen was concentrated on Obi-Wan, and the Jedi's movements quickened exponentially, his blade so swift in its deflections that it was scarcely visible to the naked eye. He had to give himself entirely to the Force for his effort, and his body contorted in ways he would suffer for later to avoid the shots which penetrated his defenses.

He couldn't keep it up indefinitely, though, and even if he could, he and his companions hadn't the time to waste. Grievous wasn't the patient sort, nor particularly concerned for the lives of his underlings; he'd have no qualms destroying the planet before the Sith on the surface could be evacuated.

It wasn't long that Obi-Wan stood alone, though.

From out of sight behind him, the man let loose a torrent of blaster fire, hitting one of the assassin droids right between the eyes, its metal cranium bent back so violently that it tore clean off and dropped to the ground behind the chrome skeleton before rolling away.

Tiring of his defensive stance, Obi-Wan made use of the man's cover fire, which divided the attentions of his enemies, bounding forward and blocking shots in mid-air before gathering momentum in a full spin and slicing one of the minions in half – from the left shoulder to the right hip – as he landed.

The top half slid off the bottom half with a slick and familiar squishiness that sounded like footsteps through muck and mire. In an instant, the corpse's two parts dropped out of sight and Obi-Wan was slashing the chest of the next soldier, who in short order joined his fallen comrade.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Jedi could see two more of the droids dropped by blaster fire, and he made a mental note in a far corner of his mind to inquire – should he be alive and have occasion to ask – where and how the smuggler learned to shoot like that.

The momentary distraction allowed the next Sith soldier to get a clear shot off at Obi-Wan, but the young shooter was thankfully so rattled that the blast sailed wide, and before he could get off another one, the Jedi's lightsaber sliced the gun in half, taking part of the hand which gripped it with it. Then Obi-Wan speared him through the chest.

Before he could extract his lightsaber from its victim's body, though, one of the assassin droids – sensing its brief instant of opportunity – lined up a shot that caught Obi-Wan clean in the right pectoral, knocking him back off his feet. The lightsaber slipped from his grasp, remaining impaled in the dying soldier.

White hot pain shot through the Jedi's body as he landed on the ground with a soft, angry clop. His vision blurred, eyes glazing over as his senses – sight and sound and Force alike – flickered in and out.

He felt, more than he saw or heard, one of the Sith soldiers standing over him. And absent the awareness or motor coordination to defend himself, he solemnly and disorientedly waited for the kill shot.

But as life takes and takes from its weary travelers, there are moments also when it offers reprieves.

The Sith soldier suddenly grunted loudly, his back arching at an awkward angle, and with a soft hiss unheard over the sirens and blaster fire and screaming of fleeing pedestrians, a silver-colored lightsaber blade emerged through his chest, then swiftly retracted and disappeared.

Dropping to his knees at Obi-Wan's feet, the soldier lurched to the ground on one side, violently convulsing.

His daze lessening slightly, gaze unblurring a bit, Obi-Wan looked up into the bright, resolute eyes of Eisley Pathij, a young Jedi with whom he was well acquainted. She looked so much like an angel just then.

There wasn't time to say anything, though, or even to share a nod. As quickly as she'd saved his life, she spun back around, cutting down another soldier who sought desperately to harm them.

Obi-Wan turned his head to the side, surprised and proud and saddened to see that Miler had joined the fight, Leona's body unattended to and lost in the crowd as the young Lieutenant unloaded blaster fire. The smuggler wasn't far from him, still unloading himself, one of his shirt sleeves torn, blood seeping out – probably from a glancing blow.

The only one he couldn't spot was Padme, which quite disturbed his frazzled mind, and he was just about to force his pain-ridden body to rise and seek her out when she suddenly appeared from behind him, the senator tentatively and fearfully glancing at the battle which waged but a feet away before kneeling down beside the Jedi, one hand going to his stomach and the other to the side of his face.

"Obi-Wan," she muttered breathlessly, glancing over her shoulder every second or so to assess danger.

He grunted, shaking his head, filled with terror – not for him, but for her – and he felt a burst of annoyance that she'd put herself in harm's way. It was a habit of hers. Only this time he wasn't in a position to protect her. The feeling was maddening.

"Are you okay?" she asked, eyes burning with concern as she brought her hand up to hover over, but not touch, the wound on his chest.

He didn't answer. Any thought to do so rushed out of his brain, as he spotted another soldier over her shoulder. He didn't even have time to utter a word and warn her.

But Padme understood human nature, and she understood Obi-Wan. The look in his eyes alone alerted her, and in a flash she twisted around, throwing her full wait into the attacker's outstretched, gun-wielding hands. At the last instant, the trajectory of his blaster fire was knocked off-course by the slender legislator, the bolt harmlessly diverted into the wall of a nearby building.

It was just a momentary delay, though. The soldier kicked her in the shoulder, knocking her to the ground beside the Jedi, where she too was left to look up helplessly.

Gun trained on the former Queen, the young murderer snarled.

He was thwarted again, though. Seemingly from nowhere, the smuggler leapt at him, tackling him from the side. They struggled briefly before the man, stronger and more dogged than Padme would have surmised, got the upper hand, grabbing the soldier's blaster and using it to beat him in the face until the Sith minion finally stilled.

Padme glanced away from the grizzly sight at the rest of the battle, letting out a long, haggard breath when she saw Eisley cut down the last droid and Miler's blaster fire take down the last soldier.

She immediately returned her attention to Obi-Wan, pushing some hair back from his face. His eyes, wide open despite his injuries, held hints of things she'd seen before – pain, fear, embarrassment, guilt. He'd felt the last two far more than was actually warranted.

Miler and Eisley trotted up from behind, crouching down beside her, both looking more grim than concerned. The smuggler's expression mirrored theirs as he tossed the dead soldier's blaster aside and joined them.

"I don't know who you are, babe," he said to the second Jedi with relief. "But ain't you a sight to see."

Eisley, a plain-looking but fair-featured woman with a figure not much different than Padme's – more toned maybe given their respective professions – blinked at the man, unimpressed, and turned her attention back to her injured friend after Padme glanced up impatiently.

"He needs a doctor, quickly!" the senator shouted, her feminine voice a foil to the hard, wailing sirens.

Obi-Wan shook his head defiantly, dismissively.

"No," he murmured, too soft to be heard. "I'm fine."

R2, satisfied the battle was over, calmly rolled up behind the group. The man flashed Padme a placating smile.

"He said he's fine, darlin'," he assured her – though it was clearly only a guess – glancing at Miler before she could utter an incensed response. "C'mon, Kid. Give me a hand."

Padme looked back at Obi-Wan in apology, but really he was glad. It wouldn't much matter that a doctor treated him if they were still down on the planet when everything went to hell.

Miler and the man hauled him off the ground. Obi-Wan swallowed a scream dispassionately, face contorted in ways unbecoming of a handsome sort.

"Easy now, Boss," the man said, in a sincere manner which surprised them all. "Time to blow this pop stand."


	8. Stagger

**A/N:** Apologies for the long delay in updating. Life is such that my leisure time is somewhat rare, and time to be devoted to pursuits of this nature is even rarer. But I greatly appreciate those of you who have followed the story, especially those who have been courteous enough to offer feedback -- it really is wonderful of you to take the time, and I always appreciate reading it. And to those who reviewed fairly recently, thanks for reminding me that I needed to revisit this piece.

This is a bit on the short side, but as it had been so long since I'd offered a new chapter, I decided to post it as a somewhat self-contained entry, rather than waiting until I had a bulkier passage to offer.

As always, I greatly appreciate any and all feedback -- complaints, praise, questions, suggestions, etc. Many thanks, and I hope you enjoy,

* * *

Miler walked a few feet ahead of them, eyes scanning for a suitable vehicle. Most of his choices were too small; some of them were too big.

The act of searching, and discriminating amongst vessels, brought memories of an unscrupulous youth rushing back. Airspeeders that seated two were the best – he'd sell them to young criminals who cared about looking rich – and the worst were, by a considerable margin, family landspeeders. No one disreputable enough to buy from a teenaged grifter would be caught dead in anything of the kind.

"That one!" the soldier called out at last.

Ahead was a half-rusted airspeeder meant to hold six. R2's diminutive stature would make it a comfortable fit. Miler turned and smiled tiredly at the two Jedi.

"Is it much further?" Obi-Wan asked mildly.

His voice was even, but Padme knew it dire that he'd spoken the words at all. Her Jedi was the proud and stubborn sort, and seldom did he concede even the slightest discomfort.

"Not far now," she assured him. "Not far."

She glanced uneasily at Eisley, who shared her friend's weight with the smuggler, dragging Obi-Wan along as gently as could be managed. Above the garage, the grim sounds of panic and death continued unabated.

So much misery, Eisley thought. So much pain that she felt it in her blood. To be blessed with the Force and cursed – filled and emptied and stitched and torn, and at once a God and a hobbled beggar, omnipotence interspersed with a cool and numbing blindness.

Miler climbed in first, leaning underneath the console on the passenger's side, prying open a panel and firmly tearing loose the wires behind it. When he sparked the exposed copper from two green and red ligatures against one another, the craft's computer dimly hummed, and the interactive screen slowly lit blue.

"How about that," the man said, handing Obi-Wan off to Eisley and Padme, lips twisted in a smirk.

Miler shrugged.

"Jus' a little something I picked up – "

" – in the waning days of a misspent youth?"

"I was goin' to say 'at the academy.'"

"Imagine that."

The man turned back to the two women, helping them lift the wounded Jedi off of the pavement and into the backseat of the speeder. Obi-Wan grunted harshly, but said nothing as he settled in, leaning the full measure of his weight against Padme, who sat beside him.

R2 boosted himself off the ground with a burst of compressed air, easing down beside his owner. In the front, Eisley and the man occupied the co-pilot seats.

Miler glanced over his shoulder at his companions.

"All set?"

"No," Padme retorted irritably.

"Nothin' t'worry about, ma'am."

"Oh? Are you planning to wish away the apocalyptic hellscape?"

"Why are the pretty ones always downers?" the man remarked.

Miler held Padme's eyes a moment, ignoring the smuggler, and he smiled just slightly before swiveling his head back and taking hold of the controls.

He thought it was funny the way he'd flown a hundred speeders on a hundred nights, when there was nothing in the air but the schemes of petty criminals, but that come morning tomorrow, the air all around would be toxic and empty and divorced from all which breathed.

The speeder lurched backward, spinning around and shooting forward across the garage.

* * *

Things were a measure quieter down below – probably because the civilian slaughter was in its latter stages. Those who'd survived had no doubt taken refuge, so that, excepting a few stragglers, all you could see was the stillness of corpses, strewn about absent of pattern, some piled over one another, some alone for ten yards in every direction.

In the sky, things were still chaotic. Speeders soared drunkenly past one another on their paths to undecided points, collisions frequent or narrowly missed and screams of terror loud, but fleeting, like snapshots of a greater darkness.

It was only Miler's instincts, sharpened by years spent teetering on a precipice, which spared he and his companions from certain doom. Each jerky movement intensified Obi-Wan's pain, jagged breaths spilling from his mouth in shallow gasps.

No one seemed to notice, though.

Why was it that, with the abundant space of a seemingly infinite universe, myriad peoples consigned themselves to war? What was conflict's true nature? From what chasm was the bastard offspring born? He pondered these questions and others as the blood seeped slowly out of him.

* * *

The man's eyes eased open, limbs and torso numb as he passed through the mist of dreams.

All around him was the stench of death – of burned flesh and superheated metal and that subtle scent of blood known only to those who'd spilled enough to recognize its nuances.

He reached a clumsy hand up to touch his face. It came away slick and stained.

"This one's alive too," he heard a dispassionate voice say, followed by the crackle of a radio.

A blurred figure appeared above him, dressed in grays and blacks, wielding something bulky he could only presume was a blaster. A Sith minion, the man surmised. But why? What happened? Where was he?

The man rolled his head to one side, trying through glassy eyes to imbibe his surroundings. He saw rubble and wreckage, and past it the contemporary shine of a building he knew he should recognize.

He hissed in pain when a boot pressed down on his chest.

"You'll tell me what I want to know," the trooper snarled.

The man grunted, but said nothing, rolling his head to the other side now, lips twisted in a grimace as he caught sight of Eisley and Padme, motionless in two stretched-out heaps.

"Which one of you is Kenobi?" his adversary demanded, gesturing behind him – presumably to another body or two, though the man couldn't see that far. "Tell me now!"

For a moment, the bloodied smuggler thought to speak the truth. After all, there was something precious about – after all the lies he'd uttered through the years to free himself from predicaments – utilizing simple honesty to escape a tragic fate. He didn't do it, though. Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen flowing to his brain, or some trauma to do with a concussion, or maybe it was something more complicated.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of motion behind the trooper. He summoned his best approximation of a smile, chest rippling with the effort it took to breathe.

"_I_ am," he croaked, voice gravelly and strained. "Wanna see a trick?"

The minion frowned slightly, taken aback by his captive's bravado. Though he couldn't know it, the words would prove an epitaph on the tomb he was to enter.

His body spun half-around against its will, before he stared into the cool blue eyes of a haggard, bearded Jedi, who from his knees leveled an old blaster pistol against the Sith servant, and fired a shot straight into his heart.

The trooper dropped onto his back, dead.

It took a moment for the man to realize what had happened. When he did, he lifted his head from the ground with some effort, staring hazily at Obi-Wan, who himself looked only marginally lucid. Their heavy eyes peered back at one another, before the Jedi glanced down at the blaster in his hand and tossed it aside with great distaste.

"Rather uncivilized," he said tiredly.

The man grumbled unintelligibly, rolling onto his side, then up to one elbow. Across from him, Obi-Wan struggled shakily to his feet, and to the Jedi's left, Miler – face-down on the ground – began to stir for the first time.

His vision beginning to clear, the man took stock of his surroundings as he forced his way to his knees. The speeder was mangled beyond repair, smoke swirling up from a slow-simmering fire, and it was lodged between two concrete slabs that used to form the post of an archway.

A grim whine in the distance slowly drifted to his ears. He thought it, at first, a mere redux of the air raid sirens they'd heard ad nauseum in the minutes prior. But as his eyes peered into the distance, the sound was accompanied by a bright rush of color – orange swallowing blue and gray, and the skyline was smothered as if rebuked for daring to stretch.

Miler gazed with him through a half-shielding hand.

"I don' imagine that's good," he said.

Obi-Wan swayed slightly, feeling something between inebriated and whipped. He glanced at the inferno with the gentle remnants of a fully repressed fear, blowing out a breath before his eyes fell on Padme and Eisley, then on R2 several yards to their side, toppled-over and motionless, circuits protruding from a disturbing opulence of orifices.

The Jedi's voice was calm, but pained, as he held an arm against his stomach to relieve a measure of agony.

"I was hoping this day might go differently," he sighed.


	9. Radiation

A/N: Another speedy update from the fan fiction workhorse, Chasing Liquor. Wait, what? It's been seven months? Well... I can't say I'm surprised. I know it's old hat by now for me to say that real life has been steadfast in opposing my writing, but it has.

I'm sorry to always make folks wait, and I greatly appreciate all those who have reviewed. Feedback helps to keep this labor of love alive in my mind. As such, I'd love it if you'd leave a review of this chapter and let me know what you think.

* * *

The klaxons were burrowing through his head like a dog through blankets, and if he had the energy, he might have torn the speakers from the wall one by one. As it was, though, he staggered ahead, footsteps slippery with blood.

Beside him, Miler dragged a gutted R2-D2 by one of his loose wires, while Padme struggled to support the lithe body of Eisley, who was almost dead weight in her state of semi-consciousness.

The man was the only one fit to lead the way, and he did, blaster held in a confident grip that told of time and ruin. He looked almost hysterical, and if he was, he had due cause. This planet was about to die, and they were moving too slowly.

A pair of young troopers bolted into view from an intersecting corridor. It wasn't until he'd gunned them down that the man noticed they weren't armed. They'd been running _away_. The man didn't flinch as he hurried past their bodies, but Padme did. And somehow that bothered him.

The thought slipped away when the building shuddered, and he turned to address his companions, face all crevices and lines.

"Let's go!" he growled, looking at Obi-Wan in particular. "Get a move on, Boss! You're slowing us down!"

The Jedi scowled, body quivering with a pain more profound than he'd ever betrayed. But the man was right. Time. There wasn't any time.

The building shook again, this time more violently – enough to collapse a ceiling panel in the distance behind them. Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes, and with a grunt, he erected his body, ignoring the pain the new position brought. Padme knew and abhorred his resolute expression.

"He's right," the Jedi said. "I am. You all need to – "

Miler shook his head.

"Y'can stop right there, General. We ain't leavin' ya – "

"I assure you, I've no interest in dying." Another ceiling panel fell behind them, dust and plaster spitting from the opening. Obi-Wan looked grim. "I'll take the shortcut through the maintenance shaft and meet you up there."

Miler was surprised by the compromise, and seemed ready to agree to it, but the man piped in incredulously.

"The _maintenance shaft_? Are you crazy, Kenobi?! You won't last a minute in that radiation!"

Padme turned her body, careful to keep her grip on Eisley as she bore her eyes into Obi-Wan's, the sternness of a wife on her face.

"What's he talking about?" she demanded.

The building shook again, and this time it wasn't a panel that collapsed – it was a huge chunk of ceiling and wall not twenty feet behind them. Upon its fall, ignited by some compound invisible to their eyes, the rubble burst into flames.

"There's no time for this!" he shouted, the guttural tone startling Padme more than the explosion. "Get to a ship. Wait for me as long as you can, but if I'm not there…"

He trailed off, glancing meaningfully at Miler, silently beseeching him to do his sworn duty. A tense moment passed, and as Obi-Wan implored of him one thing, Padme's expression implored the opposite.

But Miler nodded finally, and he knew he'd keep his promise.

"You're out of your mind, Boss," the man said.

Obi-Wan glanced at Padme, for a shorter time than she deserved. And without a word, he hobbled off, blood trailing behind him.

* * *

Padme thought about the day she met Obi-Wan. She was fifteen and a Queen, and he twenty-one and a padawan. It had felt a little ridiculous, the way he treated her like a sage – this teenaged pretender to a storied throne. In time, she came to realize that he treated all with such respect.

He'd been called to make peace between Naboo's northern and southern provinces, the latter threatening succession from the planetary compact. She could assure him no safety, or even the cooperation of her hand-picked peacemakers, but he'd begrudged her nothing. It simply wasn't his way.

In the end, he'd agreed to meet, without terms or escort, with both parties' leaders, and secured a treaty which assured no governmental fracture. It was out of this act, on his first solo mission, that the legend of "The Negotiator" was born.

She thought about how young he'd looked then, unbearded and with an impish grin. He didn't look any older than his thirty-four years at present – except in his eyes, and the memory of that window into a tortured soul dominated her thoughts as she trudged along with Miler and the man, her arm and shoulder numb beneath the sum of Eisley's weight.

They'd covered a great deal of ground since parting with the elder Jedi. It appeared he'd been right, as he usually was in such matters. But just the same, she'd have changed things if she could.

"Ha ha!"

The man's glee startled her.

She watched as he paused in front of a computer panel embedded in the wall. He attached some device of his own with a small cable, one hand gliding over the controls. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him. She followed his eyes as they scanned the corridor, before returning to the device.

"All right," he said, a little breathless. "It looks like Bay 3 still has a couple ships. Should be right up there at the end of – "

The unmistakable whine of blaster fire ripped him from his work, and it was only through sheer luck that the bolt missed his head, striking the wall and ricocheting off.

Miler turned quickly, fumbling in frustration for a weapon that wasn't there, before turning to grab Padme, pulling she and Eisley to the ground, where they formed a timid mess of limbs.

The man looked for cover, but as none was available, he merely crouched and returned fire, getting a look at three Sith soldiers peeking out from around two corners. The tactical advantage was firmly theirs. Shot after shot from his own blaster sailed harmlessly past them, while his adversaries were inches from a killshot.

"Kid!" the man shouted. "Get them out of here! Bay 3 – it's not far!"

He howled when a shot grazed his hand, scorching the flesh on his palm and knocking away his weapon. It took Miler a moment to see what happened, but when he did, he was on his knees in a flash, tucking into a roll that brought him to the man's side.

He took up the fallen blaster and nullified the Sith's brief advantage with a fresh volley of fire. The man trembled in pain beside him, staring down at his mangled palm.

"Go on!" Miler yelled, close enough that it hurt his companion's ears. "I'll hold them off! It's on you now!"

The man gritted his teeth, barely noticing when he was almost struck a second time. But even as the pain of the damaged appendage worsened, he found the strength to nod and the wherewithal to seek out Padme, meeting her terrified eyes.

What was it his mom used to say when he was young – about how it meant something that at the mercy of chemicals and random reactions, life still found a way across galaxies.

He smiled a little, then crawled to her side with a grimace.

* * *

Obi-Wan brushed back some damp hair with a clumsy stroke, eyes mere slits in the burning light of the maintenance shaft.

It wasn't lost on him the futility of his undertaking. Right now, his body was being flooded with thermal radiation at close-range. His communion with the Force could only spare him so much, especially given the compounding weakness of his previous afflictions.

No living creature was meant to occupy this tunnel, except in the most dire of moments, and even then only in a triple-layered hazard suit. This was the domain of droids, and of death.

His mind was an amalgam of frayed thoughts and uncongealed images, and he confused them easily with the sights and sounds of the present, until it was mere instinct that urged him onward, palm after palm, knee after knee, in the choppy rhythm of a misplayed march.

He thought of Anakin, of the last words they shared. Was it so long ago? Was it a time too ancient to be called the past?

"_What you speak is madness!" he barked. "Are you so vain? So easily taken?"_

_Anakin's eyes darkened – quickly and completely, like a sheet tossed over a cage – and he adopted a stance not unlike the one in which he fought. His fists were clenched at his sides, lips twisted in a cold snarl._

"_How dare you? You sanctimonious bastard!" he rumbled. "I've let you suppress my gifts for long enough. For ten years, you've belittled me in the service of petty jealousy. I'm not going to let you blame me anymore for becoming what you could never be."_

_Obi-Wan glanced down, shoulders rolled forward. He felt something approaching pity, or at least regret, and he wasn't sure at whom it was directed. The fire was gone from him when he looked up again._

"_Anakin, the Sith are _evil_," he quietly implored him. "You're at the precipice of what can't be undone. If you leave here, there can be no redemption. There will be nothing and no one to guide you to the light."  
_

_The words meant nothing. If anything, the padawan hardened._

"_From my point of view, the Jedi are evil."_

_Obi-Wan glanced past him, thinking for a long moment as he glanced through the balcony glass at a dirty strip of moonlight. He blinked something back, like he'd been taught a man should, and he ran his tongue over his lips before finally nodding – once, then twice more, and he looked back at Anakin._

"_Then, I suppose," he said, "that you're already lost."_

He confused the image with one of Padme. Confused love with lost love. Was it Anakin he loved, and Padme who he lost? Perhaps he'd lost them both.

It was difficult to breathe now. He could almost feel each solitary rad penetrate his shield, and then his body, imbuing him with a sickness harder, but less damning than the one which took hold in his protégé.

Padme was a beautiful woman. Physically. Sometimes he didn't notice that. He was busy noticing other things about her. And to what did he owe his thanks for her light?

He was so tired. The ground beneath him was warm. Perhaps he was on a beach, and if he lay down, he'd eventually wake.

And perhaps he wouldn't.

He shut his eyes.


	10. Lesions

**A/N: **Many thanks to Guest, seren, Random, and ObiBettina for the reviews! I greatly appreciate that you took the time. Writing, especially fan fiction, is always a much more rewarding experience when you get feedback.

So, for anyone who's following this story, do me a favor and leave a review. Negatives, positives, questions -- all are welcome.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Padme wasn't gentle with her.

She dragged her charge in a loose grip, skimming the young Jedi's knees along the floor, and every few feet, they struck with a clop, hard enough to bruise or break.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The man glanced back, finding the sight a little pathetic. It didn't measure up to some other sights, though. He'd seen a lot of things in a lot of places. He turned his head forward, eying the door at the end of the corridor again, trying to ignore the tremors permeating the building on all sides.

They were so close.

Somewhere behind them, barely audible, but still there amongst the rumblings of the building and the roar of the fires beyond its walls, the sound of blasters grazed their ears, and they fought to ignore its implications, lest their consciences and intentions fall into conflict.

As they approached the huge doors, the man let out a shaky sigh, still very much aware of the direness of their circumstance and of the pain in his hand, bloody and burned and raped of its dexterity. With his good appendage, he fished out the device he'd used earlier and connected it to the security panel.

Clumsily bracing it on one forearm, so that he could type with the uninjured hand, he cursed Kenobi's droid for being gutted in the crash and for being left for dead at Miler's side. Would've been a lot easier to let that runt do the work.

The ceiling collapsed just behind him, and as its weight began to plummet, he whipped his head back to locate Padme and Eisley. It was clear they'd be crushed.

His device clattered to the floor as he grabbed the women, Padme with his good hand and Eisley with the mangled one, yanking them forward and out of the ceiling's path, just as the mess of metal and glass and insulation pounded the ground where'd they stood, scattering dust and scraps and smoke, which kicked up at the three companions, filling their lungs, drawing long, hacking coughs from them as they listed off their feet.

After a long moment sucking the tainted air, the man turned off of his knees, sitting back against the bay doors, looking over Padme and Eisley through half-open eyes. They appeared, relative to before, unharmed, and he wondered if he cared either way.

A second passed, and he supposed he did. How quaint.

His eyes slipped shut briefly.

"_Do you have anything to say in your defense?"_

_The man gave no indication he'd been spoken to, peering down at his shackled hands with feigned interest, and it was only when nudged by the woman beside him that he bothered to look up, leveling his gaze on the old judge, who stared back dispassionately._

"_Would it matter if I did?"_

"_It is your right," the elder said patiently, "to offer declarations, persuasive or otherwise, prior to your judgment."_

_The man, with cool, clear eyes, and a youthful face not yet imposed upon by years, smiled slightly._

"_I ain't ever taken something I wasn't already due. I ain't done anything to anyone that can't be undone. And I've never told a lie I'd be ashamed to tell my son." He paused, thinking. "But if you add all that together and you see something I don't, then so be it."_

_He held the judge's gaze for a long moment, then glanced at the woman, who regarded him sadly, before his eyes trailed down to her belly._

The man coughed violently, then looked at Padme.

"Get up."

* * *

The heat had been strangely comforting at first – like walking into a warm apartment after a mile in the cold. But the longer he lay there, the less inviting it became, until at last the sensation turned grim, like he'd had a stroke in the Tattooine desert and his limbs were too heavy to do what was needed to save him.

He was nauseous now. Why was that? Was it something to do with where he was? Surrounded by all this scorching metal? Was it for the same reason as the pounding in his skull, or the agony in his chest?

What a strangeness, this being human.

There was skin and bone, veins and blood, tissue and cells, and through it all the body endured, holding together just well enough for the mind to worry itself with higher thoughts. For all the frailties of the human form, the majority of a man's attentions were consigned not to the basic practicality which governed his existence, but to the search for all the answers assumed mired in the unexplained, and to that need to connect to others, physically and mind to mind, if for no other reason than to confirm that his quests were indeed relevant.

He lifted his head with some effort, then braced a palm on the metal beneath him. Wherever he was, he'd been trying to leave there. He at least knew that much.

* * *

The bay was better off than the rest of the place, but not by much.

He'd counted on finding two ships there, and he did, but one of them was engulfed in flames, half-melted, bits and pieces broken off in an explosion from before their arrival. The other, a medical transport, was as yet untouched.

The man led the way, Padme's pace slowing, and she couldn't help but rebuke him, the stronger of the two, for not taking Eisley from her, in spite of his injury and his handling of obstacles.

There was a large beam, collapsed from the ceiling presumably, just in front of the ship's main hatch. The man leapt over it nimbly, then began hacking the ship's security console in nearly the same motion.

As the ramp lowered down, he glanced back at Padme, who stood on the other side of the beam still, Eisley sinking in her grasp.

The man reached across and grabbed hold of the Jedi's upper half. Padme caught on and grabbed her around the legs, pushing her up and over, into the arms of her accidental comrade.

He scooped her up and stumbled toward the ramp, feeling enervated and put-upon in spite of his strength and her negligible weight.

Padme climbed awkwardly over the beam, tumbling down on the other side with not an ounce of grace. She could feel her back tense when she found her feet again, and she was a bit ginger in following him.

The ship's interior wasn't what she'd expected.

Toward the back, four bacta tanks faced each other on opposite sides, and between them was what appeared to her eyes a makeshift operating room, with bolted-in tables, surgical trays, and supply closets. Toward the front were two long benches, enough to seat about twenty altogether. The man had deposited Eisley on one of them, and was occupying the cockpit.

Padme hurried to the front to join him.

He'd already donned the pilot's headset and was beginning pre-flight procedures. The senator glanced over his shoulder at his work. She didn't know much about piloting, but she knew enough to conclude that his actions were premature.

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure this thing's gonna fly."

"We're waiting for them," she declared tersely.

The man sighed, matching her.

"Settle down, lady. I wanna be ready to punch it as soon as we've got them. Or do you want me to play Sabacc until they get here?"

Padme rolled her eyes, but left him to his work. She returned to the main cabin, checking on Eisley, who appeared no more lucid than before. A concussion was probable, and permanent brain damage a possibility. There was just no way of knowing how bad it was without a doctor.

She sat down beside the Jedi, stroking her hair in wasted comfort. Or perhaps it was for Padme's _own_ comfort, as her thoughts drifted to Obi-Wan.

His incessant inclination toward heroism was as confounding as it was admirable, and while she'd not have changed him in any aspect if given the opportunity, she nevertheless cursed the soul of the universe for making her care so much for one who cared none for himself.

"Hurry up," she murmured.

* * *

It was a testament to Miler's tenacity that the fight had lasted so long, considering its terms. But the Sith troopers, even if conditioned for patience, were surely running out of it.

Two of them popped out from behind cover, laying down a blanket of fire.

Immediately, their aimed improved, and Miler howled as a shot grazed his ankle. But his aim enjoyed the same advantage, and with greater precision than his adversary, he fired a shot square into the heart of one of them, blowing the man off his feet.

But the last trooper forsook his cover as well, and once more there were two with a direct line of fire. In a flash, Miler's weapon was jolted from his hand, rendered broken and useless beside him on the ground. He was defenseless now. Trapped. At the mercy of a pair of thugs.

He snarled defiantly, refusing to close his eyes, and waited for the killshot.

A hatch from the ceiling fell unexpectedly, striking one of the men in the shoulder. Both turned their eyes up, but couldn't react before a human form dropped through the new cavity, igniting a lightsaber and slashing them across their chests before landing on his side in an exhausted heap.

Miler watched, awed, as the troopers fell dead on either side of Obi-Wan, who looked hardly lucid enough to have done the deed that put them there.

He hurried to the Jedi's side, turning him a little to get a better look. The wretched sight was enough to make Miler vomit. One side of Obi-Wan's face was a vile red and bore the imprint of the tunnel he'd crawled through, and his hands and arms were angry and peeling, peppered with full-on radiation lesions, his attire tattered and holey.

In about ten minutes, all the bacta in the world wouldn't put him back to together.

* * *

"_I can't have you around him," she said, as nonchalantly as she could manage through bars. "I can't have him knowing what you did. Where he came from."_

_The man didn't look at her, head propped on an elbow, which was itself propped on a knee. He didn't appear angry. He just shrugged a little, breathing deeply._

"_Well, I guess that's up to you."_

_His lack of reaction seemed to frustrate her._

"_Do you even _care_? Does it matter to you?" she snapped. "I _wanted_ him to know you. You owed us that."_

_He smiled sardonically, shaking his head._

"_No one's owed for anything. Not a one. You can be as mad as you want, and you can wander around looking for a reason. But you might as well just ask the dust, or the black outside the window. Because no one knows why. I imagine you'll learn that one day."_

_The woman gave him a long look, wanting to remember those words and that face, lest she doubt herself at a later date. She wet her lips and huffed and frowned, and then she turned and walked away._

The ship rocked a bit, and he and Padme looked through the cockpit window with dread as the ceiling just ahead caved in completely, metal and wires and all such things colliding and combusting and nearly blinding them with light.

"I'm giving Kenobi and the kid about thirty seconds."

Padme turned on him, calmer than he expected.

"We're not leaving without him."

"_Him_?"

"Them," she corrected. "So you just sit there and keep this thing ready to fly."

His casual comportment in the face of calamity was the one trait he'd consistently exhibited, but it evaporated in that moment, replaced by a coldness which would be becoming of a Sith.

"Listen here, _Princess_, I'm not gonna die just because your heat skips a beat for a Jedi. So why don't you shut your mouth for once in your life? Is that even possible?"

Padme flinched, but steeled her gaze.

"If you leave here without them, I'll kill you myself," she said.

And she thought she might have meant it.

* * *

Obi-Wan was slung over Miler's shoulders in a fireman's carry. He seemed hardly conscious, but was aware enough to keep hold of a long red wire, which was precariously connected to the remains of R2D2, who he continued to drag along. It was to Miler's dismay and frustration, but the soldier said nothing, stomping ahead.

"Leave me," he thought he heard the Jedi mumble.

There were things about a person that you might admire at first, but come to hate in different contexts. Obi-Wan's stubbornness was such a quality.

"Afrai'not, General."

* * *

In contrast to the other half of the ceiling, which they'd watched collapse in front of them, the ceiling above the medical ship was torn up and away, and though they couldn't see it from their vantage point, the sky was a red-orange portrait of the specter of death.

The man glanced back at Padme.

"Time's up!" he bellowed. "Now strap yourself in!"

"Just wait! They'll be here!"

"We wait any longer and there won't _be_ a here, sweetheart!"

"Just one more minute!"

He didn't bother responding, turning back to the controls to initiate the launch sequence. The lights in the cockpit came to life, and a neutral female voice emanated from the computer, calmly reminding its pilot of necessary procedures.

Padme clutched at his arm.

"Wait a second; stop!"

He shrugged her off like a child, continuing his task. The thrusters roared to life, sounding as funeral bells to the senator's ears, and they might as well have chimed for her if this ship left without her Jedi.

Across the bay, one of the collapsed sections exploded, sending fragments hurtling toward the ship, a massive steel rod shooting toward the cockpit window, before it angled up and glanced across the roof.

The fire spread like through the trees in a dry and windy forest. Soon, a wall of flames surrounded them, and Padme's hope was finally lost.

She shut her eyes, a hand over her mouth, tears spilling from her cheeks.

There was nothing for a moment – no noise but those of the ship, as the man brought it to life.

And then, just as sure as the world was burning, there was the desperate, sloppy clatter of boots and bodies on steel.

Miler climbed the ramp tiredly, dumping Obi-Wan on the floor. He turned back and dragged the ravaged R2 the rest of the way onboard, then dropped to his knees, slamming his fist into the panel on the wall, finally collapsing as the hatch clicked shut.

Padme's heart stopped. Her eyes trailed over the half-dead Jedi, taking in his putrid lesions. The blood was still seeping from the wound in his chest, his attire as maroon as what flowed in his veins.

The young soldier glanced toward the cockpit.

"Let's go," he mumbled.

The man complied, lifting the ship off the ground, just as the fire kicked up with a mind to swallow them. For a moment, the ship disappeared into its depths, before emerging unharmed in the next instant, blazing a trail up into the sky.

As the man dodged various debris and the scattered attacks reigning down from orbit, an exhausted Padme and Miler secured Eisley in one of the vacant bacta tanks. Neither she nor Miler were doctors, but he'd seen enough of the grossly wounded to know the way these worked.

The ship rocked violently as they returned to Obi-Wan's side, forcing Padme to steady the addled soldier. He shook the wooze from his head and lifted up the Jedi, wincing as his hands skimmed across some lesions.

Padme couldn't bring herself to touch him.

After Miler deposited him in another bacta tank, she stood staring as Obi-Wan floated, face obscured by a breathing mask. Even unconscious, he looked afflicted, forehead creased in worry and pain.

She realized, then, that she'd do absolutely anything to see that he endured. To see that he was cared for. And if there were some way for her to take his pain for her own, to bear all the lesions without and within, she would suffer it all, and gladly, in this life and in the next.

What do you call that feeling?

The ship soared into the stratosphere, skimming along peril.

As it finally shot into the black of space, Miler's and the man's stomachs clenched. After all they'd been through, it could still unravel. The Sith fleet swallowed them in all directions. This ship was a mere moth, and moths will burn if one's so inclined.

"Are ya sure this is the curren' security code?" Miler asked from the co-pilot's seat, eying the random letters the man was entering. "If you're wrong…"

"Relax, Kid. The code's fine. And we're transmitting text only, so there won't be any questions."

With a stroke of the thumb, the code was submitted. The man took a breath, and he had a far-off look as he gazed out the window.

"_Relax, Kid. I ain't the constable. You wanna drink a quart of juma juice, I won't stop you."_

_The boy appeared indecisive for a moment, then scowled and looked down at the bar, taking a healthy swig from his bottle._

_He had a mess of brown hair that cried out for a comb. That was the first thing the man noticed. It was quite a contrast to his own – slicked back out of his face – and it made it all the more pitiful how the boy was trying to play grown-up._

"_You should watch yourself in a place like this," the man said. "Lotta people lookin' to take advantage of someone."_

_The boy smirked._

"_Like you?"_

"_Me? I'm the only one here who ain't gonna grab your wallet the second you stand up."_

"_Yeah. Whatever."_

"_Hey, I'm just trying to help you out. But if you're a tough guy, I'll just leave you to it. I'm sure you know what you're doing."_

_The boy's expression soured, but he didn't reply – just kept his head down and took another swig. He had those sad kind of eyes that looked like dulled coins, and it almost meant something to the man that he seemed so beaten._

"_What's your name, Kid?" the man asked, voice a little softer._

_The boy spent a few seconds in thought, and then he heaved out a sigh, spinning his bottle on the bar. He didn't look up when he spoke, but the man's eyes never left him._

"_Han."_

"S8-71, you are cleared to join the fleet. Bear right," a voice signaled over the radio.

Miler looked out the window incredulously, only satisfied of their safety when he watched the ship fly unassailed through the heart of the Sith fleet. Then he let out a manic cackle.

"It worked!" Miler declared, sounding delirious. "I don' believe it. It really worked."

The man stared ahead a moment, like he hadn't heard him, and then he shrugged.

"Just how I planned it," he said.

To his surprise, the soldier laughed – a real, full-on, mirthful laugh that you can't understand if you've never survived something. He clapped the man on the shoulder, startling him. It took a second, but the man finally summoned a shallow laugh of his own.

They both glanced back when Padme approached, the senator a measure more sullen.

She looked out the window, leaning between the men, and then she stepped away, adopting the hard comportment she'd honed during a lifetime of politicking.

"We need to return to Coruscant."

Miler frowned.

"Are ya sure that's wise? Dantooine's closer."

"Obi-Wan's badly hurt. He needs the best doctors the Republic has to offer, and they aren't on Dantooine."

Miler smiled sympathetically, nodding. The man met her eyes a moment, but seemed uncomfortable in doing it and quickly looked away.

"Whatever you say, lady," he offered nonchalantly. "I'd take a ride to Mustafar after all of that."

Padme glanced at Miler, then back at the man, and moved to return to the cabin. She wondered about something, though. And while fatigue and worry were squeezing her in a vise, they were momentarily overshadowed by a lingering curiosity.

She turned back.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The man paused, hand hovering over the controls. She didn't think he'd answer; he just had that expression on his face. And though he was inclined not to, he supposed it was the least he owed her, considering that cut on her forehead had saved his life.

"Landon Solo," he said.

Padme nodded, satisfied, and then she left him be.

* * *

Grievous' brutish image flickered in the holo-viewer, his already strained voice distorted by static.

"The planet is rubble," he declared in a nasally brogue. "And we crushed the Republic fleet."

Three cloaked figures surrounded the viewer, one of them restless, the others placid.

"Were there any survivors?" the restless one asked.

"There were a few cruisers that fled like dogs. And we've taken prisoners from another. The rest were destroyed."

"Is Padme all right?" queried the restless one.

The other two figures stepped closer, bathed in the light of the hologram.

Sidious shared an annoyed glance with Dooku, but said nothing, patiently awaiting Grievous' reply.

"There was an incident."

"What kind of incident?" the restless one demanded. "Is she all right?"

"General Kenobi came for her. Your Dark Jedi could not stop him."

Vader stepped forward, yellow eyes eerily awash in the blue glow of Grievous. He looked equal parts beast and boy, and his nose wrinkled in disgust.

"You let him _take_ her!? Obi-Wan is weak! He's ordinary. And you lost her to _him_?"

Grievous was contrite, though clearly pained by the act, his head bowed a little in deference.

"Forgive me for their failure, my Lord. It will not happen again."

"See that it doesn't," Sidious said passively, mostly to appease his young apprentice. He glanced a moment at Vader, part-fatherly and part-mocking, before addressing Grievous again. "Report back to me in one day."

The half-droid nodded, and then his image disappeared.

Dooku glowered at Vader, and his eyes held a remorseless loathing possessed by many, but so rarely cultivated the way it had been in him. He shook his head.

"Still consumed by trite affections, I see. Despite her treachery and weakness, your first thoughts are still of her."

Vader stiffened, matching his stare.

"My thoughts are no business of yours."

"No," Dooku said after a moment, pausing and smiling darkly. "No, I suppose not."

Dooku observed him then. Vader observed him in kind. And he wondered about the old man's soul, about what, if anything, was in it, and if that anything or nothing was also in his own, and he wondered too about killing the man in his sleep, about whether it would be prudent or imprudent and about how best to do it, and he wondered with a chill if Dooku was wondering the same.

* * *

**A/N:** How did the flashback convention work for you? My idea was that each chapter would focus on the flashbacks of one particular character.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to let me know what you thought.


	11. One

**A/N: **Many thanks to Baway, Random Nemesis, totallyNsane, and ObiBettana for taking the time to review! It's greatly appreciated, and helps keep me inspired to write.

I'm going to continue with the flashbacks. Sometimes they'll be purposefully confusing (to build toward later revelations) and other times they'll be easy to follow. This chapter's flashbacks are Padme's, and they're meant to be easy to follow. Since they play off of something from Chapter 9, I'll include the pertinent excerpt below.

I'm happy with how this chapter turned out, so I hope you enjoy it! As always, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd take the time offer feedback when you finish reading.

* * *

**PREVIOUSLY:**

Padme thought about the day she met Obi-Wan. She was fifteen and a Queen, and he twenty-one and a padawan. It had felt a little ridiculous, the way he treated her like a sage – this teenaged pretender to a storied throne. In time, she came to realize that he treated all with such respect.

He'd been called to make peace between Naboo's northern and southern provinces, the latter threatening succession from the planetary compact. She could assure him no safety, or even the cooperation of her hand-picked peacemakers, but he'd begrudged her nothing. It simply wasn't his way.

In the end, he'd agreed to meet, without terms or escort, with both parties' leaders, and secured a treaty which assured no governmental fracture. It was out of this act, on his first solo mission, that the legend of "The Negotiator" was born.

She thought about how young he'd looked then, unbearded and with an impish grin.

* * *

It hadn't been difficult to escape the Sith fleet. When the first wave of warships entered hyperspace, with orders to rendezvous at Corellia, Landon made the jump as well – except the course he laid in was quite different, and it would return he and his companions to the Republic capital.

Now, with the ship on autopilot, there was little left for them to do but wait.

Padme sat on one of the long benches, Miler on the floor a few feet from her, trying to make sense of the busted-up carcass of R2-D2. He knew his way around intricate technology, but the severity of R2's damage was a bit beyond him. Still, he needed to be _doing_ something just then.

"Do you think you can fix him?" Padme asked.

Miler let out a sardonic grunt as he peered into the droid's gullet with a flashlight.

"I took a few engineering classes at th'academy," he said, "but my attendance was… sporadic."

Padme smiled slightly.

"I find that hard to believe."

"Had trouble payin' attention, I s'pose. I'd be off loggin' flight hours, or on the shootin' range."

Padme played with a loose thread on her pants, watching it unravel. She noticed the soot on her for the first time, pants dirtied during one of the ceiling collapses at the Sith base.

"Do you like that part of it?"

"Which part, ma'am?"

"Shooting people."

Miler paused in mid-act, switching off the flashlight, a bit taken aback. He glanced over, but she wasn't looking at him, still fixated on the pant thread.

"If they deserve it," he said, reaching inside of R2 to yank on something. "I sleep quite nicely, if that's what you're wondering."

Padme frowned when the thread finally snapped. She thought maybe she shouldn't have asked that. In fact, the only reason he'd ever had to shoot anyone in the first place was because the politicians – Padme herself among them – had failed in their diplomacy.

"Thank you," she said sincerely, this time brave enough to meet his gaze. "For everything."

Miler softened, sighing, and he offered her a mild smile.

It reminded her of another smile, and of a day since passed.

_She'd always felt a little ridiculous in all this make-up, the weight of the ornate headressings compressing her neck into her spine. Sometimes it made her feel like the punch-line of a vaudeville act. But she had respect for what it represented – countless centuries of a democratic monarchy that ably served its people, and a tradition of pageantry and spectacle renowned throughout the galaxy._

_As her security detail led her through the plaza, over the cobblestone and past the freshly erected buildings, she thought back to those buildings which were sacrificed – the shops and businesses and homes and theaters which had stood for hundreds of years, and which held so many memories for her and others – and of the wrecking ball which took their lives. She thought, too, of the small arena which was to be torn to the ground in two week's time. She'd lobbied the legislature for its preservation some months earlier, but her world's political disaccord had soon trivialized the cause._

_When Panaka gave her a scrutinizing glance, she banished the musing and turned her eyes to the congregation moving toward them. A cloaked man was led forward by some of Padme's royal guards._

_As they met beside an elaborate fountain, the soothing flow of water the day's only sound, the cloaked man pulled back his hood, revealing a clean-shaven Jedi with closely cropped hair and a tightly woven padawan braid. Padme smiled nervously, immediately taken with him, and she fought to conceal the feeling._

"_Your majesty," one of the guards greeted, gesturing to the young man. "This is Obi-Wan Kenobi."_

_The Jedi smiled shyly._

_And there was something so familiar about it. She thought maybe she'd had a dream – a prophetic one – inhabited by this man or this moment, and his voice only reinforced the feeling. It was so rich, and so like something she'd heard before._

"_It's a pleasure to meet you, your highness."_

_Padme extended her hand, a strange practice for a queen, and though most would have kissed it, he simply shook it, holding her palm in a firm, but gentle grip that seemed to penetrate her skin and sputter through her._

"_The pleasure is mine," she said._

"We're about eight hours from Coruscant," Landon announced, startling her.

Padme nodded, sighing as she glanced back at the bacta tanks, where Eisley and Obi-Wan unknowingly floated. Eighteen hours might as well have been eighteen years.

Miler followed her eyes discreetly.

"As soon as we're in Republic space, I'll send out a coded beacon – let 'em know we're the good guys."

"Good guys, huh?" the smuggler mumbled, smirking as he sat down on the bench near Padme. "I respect that about you Republic types. No shades of gray."

Miler paused his work on R2, forehead creased in the middle.

"Are ya tryin' t'say the divisions aren't clear?"

"Everyone's got a moral compass, Kid. Sometimes they just don't point the same direction."

"I suppose moral relativism is essential in your line of work," Padme remarked.

"Says the politician whose war has killed billions," Landon retorted darkly. "At least I ain't kiddin' myself about what _I_ do, sweetheart."

Padme glanced down. Whatever truth or untruth was possessed in those words, they stung her just the same. Still, he'd no business making the claim.

"A war I did not seek, and one I've worked tirelessly to end. And my moral clarity has no bearing on your own. You're still a common thief, and you were still ready to leave them behind," she spat.

The scoundrel observed Miler's unreadable expression, and as he was never at a loss for words, he responded quickly and with passion, gesturing to the occupied bacta tanks.

"You think Kenobi would have had it any other way? It's pure luck that we weren't incinerated waiting for them. I guarantee you, if he'd had a choice, he would have told me to get you the hell out of there, which is _exactly_ what I was trying to do!"

"Don't you dare speak for Obi-Wan! You don't know the first thing about him!"

There was a moment of silence, pregnant with hate. In that moment, Padme understood the lure of the dark side. Anger was consuming, and its roots could sink into the molten cores of planets and stars. And though not sensitive to the Force, Padme could imagine it filling the cabin just then, spiraling its will around her and hurling her at the source of her disgust.

"I believe he's right, ma'am," Miler said, surprising his companions. "The General would have preferred your safe passage to his own survival."

Padme blinked, frowning, and she looked at the young soldier as one does empty space. She'd expected his support, his _vehement_ support, for he was the deferential sort, and he had an appreciation for hierarchy – and he'd certainly no affection for Landon.

"His life means very little t'him where others are concerned," Miler explained gently. "And its value is particularly small, compared to the regard he has for yours."

Landon looked away. Padme held Miler's gaze, finding sentiment and compassion there, and it felt as if those qualities were causing her to shrink – made her feel vulnerable to things buried beneath her skin.

"He's rather extraordinary," she said quietly.

Miler smiled.

"Aye. He is."

The soldier turned his eyes on Obi-Wan's tank, watched the Jedi's limbs flail a little as he floated. If there were a thousand Obi-Wan Kenobis, this war might be over. But there weren't. Just him – just one.

"He adores you," Miler said.

Padme's breath hitched an instant, then evened out. She followed his eyes to Obi-Wan, taking in his damaged torso.

What madness in men and women that so much is left unsaid. What purpose is served, what safety gained, by denying what's plainly there?

"I was adored once," Landon murmured, and he looked out the window.

* * *

_Padme watched Obi-Wan peer out the glass doors at the courtyard below. She marveled at his serenity, at the resilient nature of his optimism. Truth be told, she'd been dreading the arrival of a Jedi. She'd half-expected him to leave when the situation was properly explained. But he'd been entirely unmoved by the largeness of his task._

_She joined him at the doors, taking in the same view._

"_Your planet is lovely," the Jedi said after a time._

_Her hands skimmed along the ridiculous folds of her robe. She played with the fabric, twisting it in her small fingers._

"_It is. For now."_

_Obi-Wan frowned._

"_For now?"_

"_I fear there are those who would make it otherwise," Padme explained dourly._

"_The Separatists."_

"_Yes, them especially. But they're not the only ones."_

"_Who else?"_

_Padme couldn't help a little grin at his boyish curiosity. She was used to people making eye-contact and staring intently – but truly having one's attention was another thing entirely._

"_Perhaps I should wait until you've solved the first problem, before I tell you of others."_

"_You'll find a Jedi's mind has room for many thoughts, m'lady," Obi-Wan replied, and if she didn't know better, she'd have thought the remark flirtatious._

_She wondered if all Jedi were like him – if his traits were innate or acquired – and if his affable nature and coolness under pressure would be enough to seal the rift threatening to halve her world. In her gut, springing from the same depths as did the flutter running through her, was the inexplicable sense that, were the deed required of him, he could move the stars themselves through space and through time._

"_It is not my place to make promises, your majesty, but I assure you that I will do whatever I can to make both sides see reason," he said._

"_I appreciate that very much, Jedi Kenobi." She sighed, though, souring. "I only wish I could assure your safety during negotiations. But I've no way of knowing who I can trust – who is sympathetic to the separatists, and who is fanatical in my own ranks."_

"_Then I shall address them all with equal disdain," he deadpanned._

_Padme chuckled a little, and she wasn't twisting her sleeves anymore. Her hands were loose at her sides._

"_You aren't what I expected."_

"_And what did you expect?"_

"_Someone less… engaging," she admitted, a tinge of color on her face. "And older perhaps."_

"_Would you prefer I were older? More experienced?"_

"_The Jedi would not have sent you if you weren't capable. And you've given me no reason to doubt their decision."_

_Obi-Wan smiled, and he didn't mute it the way he usually would. She quite liked the sight of it. Her own soon followed._

_For a few minutes, neither said anything, but the silence was companionable. It was so dissimilar to that to which she was accustomed – so genuine and peaceful and non-sycophantic._

_When the sun began to set, its light cleaved by nearby buildings and passing in fractured pieces through the glass doors, Padme was struck by how unprepared men and women were for night, or for the day that followed it._

_But perhaps that wasn't Obi-Wan's experience._

"_They say Jedi can see the future," she said. "Is that true?"_

"_The gift is overstated, but yes, to an extent." He, too, watched the sun sink. "I don't know the date of my death, or the winning swoop-bike at the Onderon races. But I see bits and pieces. Sometimes it's difficult to make sense of them."_

"_Is that frustrating?"_

"_It can be," he admitted. "But were the pictures complete, I'd have the ability to change the course of events. And I have no place disturbing the will of the Force."_

"_So you believe in fate then?"_

_Obi-Wan glanced at her, an enigmatic smile forming, before he faced the fading sun again. And she was sure his eyes would swallow a star, before it would swallow them._

She watched helplessly as the medical team extracted Obi-Wan from the bacta tank. The lesions which had peppered him were largely gone, but the wound on his chest had only partially healed. His condition was still fluid, they told her.

When the medics began pushing the stretcher, Bail Organa gently pulled Padme out of its path. She didn't move to follow it. Reason overcame sentiment; she'd only be in the way of any efforts to care for her friend.

Eisley had been taken for attention as well, and there were signs that the trauma to her brain was severe. Perhaps she'd have been better off down on the planet – returning to the dust with some measure of dignity, not left to linger between dead and undead.

Padme stared out the open hatch, even when Obi-Wan was gone. Bail stood beside her, Miler and Landon off at an angle.

"I called in the Chancellor's personal physician," Bail said, trying to be encouraging. "He's in good hands. And regardless, we both know how stubborn he is."

She smiled through a repressed sheen of tears, then angled her body away from him, lest she concede the act. Bail understood, and so he occupied himself with her companions, who looked frazzled in their own right.

"You must be Lt. Crata," he said, extending a hand.

Miler shook it.

"That's right. It's very nice t'meet ya, Senator."

"The feeling is mutual," Bail assured him. "I've known some resourceful men in my time, but rescuing two Jedi and a senator from a war zone in an enemy ship? That's a new one to me."

Landon scowled a little at the misappropriated accolades, but would have said nothing.

"Well, thank ya, sir. But I'm afraid your praise is par'ly misplaced." Miler gestured to the smuggler. "He had as much a hand in it as I did."

The deflection surprised the other men, and Bail took a moment, puzzling, before he smiled humbly and held out his hand to Landon.

"Then my thanks to you as well. You've done a service to the Republic."

Landon stared at the hand a moment, as if allergic to flesh, before cautiously accepting the gesture.

"Yeah, sure," he replied carefully, eyes skeptical. "Happy to help. But now that I've done you a favor, maybe you can scratch my back too."

"What is it you need?"

"Well, I'm an entrepreneur – " He ignored Miler's snort. " – and the Sith just destroyed my entire operation. Matter of fact, I ain't got a thing in the world but what I'm wearing right now. I figure since Boss man – " He gestured to the absent Obi-Wan. " – is kind of a big deal, me saving his life might be worth something."

It shouldn't have surprised Bail that he cut right to the chase. Under normal circumstances, the smuggler might have waited to play his hand, but Landon wasn't just looking for a payday here. He was a refugee – and one, no doubt, with an eventful past. It was only sensible for him to milk the system while his good deed was still fresh.

"I'm sure we can arrange something," Bail assured him. "Until then, you're an honored guest. I'll see to it that you're given quarters in the Jedi Temple."

"Senator," Miler interjected, "I'd like to get in touch with my commander – meet up with my squadron. Do you know where they are right now?"

The lines around Bail's mouth deepened. Truth be told, he was hoping to avoid relaying the information he possessed. He'd dealt with a lot of bad news in his life. He'd spent years, in fact, steeling himself to its receipt. But he'd little experience with or affection for its delivery.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but…" Miler's heart sank. "I'm afraid you're the only member of your legion to survive. The rest were killed in combat."

For the first time since their escape, reality began to sink in. Miler had been so relieved to have survived, and for his companions to have survived, that he nearly forgot the sheer scope of the death on Sarna. _Millions_ had died, among them Leona – the dear woman whose kindness had breathed new life into him – and his military brethren, for whom he'd have sacrificed his very soul. All gone. Vanished. Departed like so much garbage into a place he'd never find them.

"You're on stand-down," Bail continued kindly. "I know you were stationed on Taris, but for now, you're welcome to stay here. It would probably do you some good to see familiar faces."

Padme, her own concerns forgotten, placed her hand on the young soldier's shoulder, rubbing a smooth circle like she would for a niece after a nightmare. What horrors this man, and those like him, were asked to bear for a distant peace.

His eyes held no life, and there was nothing to hint that they'd ever supported it.

"Come on," she said, grasping his elbow gently. "Let's go get cleaned up."

* * *

Yoda's hover-pad matched the slow strides of Mace Windu and Ki-Adi-Mundi, as the three proceeded through the temple toward the infirmary. Of the three, Yoda's countenance appeared the most grave, though the feeling was possessed by all.

"Afford to lose Master Kenobi, we cannot," he said, ears twitching a little.

"He's one of our finest tacticians," Mundi replied. "Though I fear this war may be too far gone to be won by sound strategy."

Yoda grunted, shaking his head.

"No. More to it, there is, than his skills as a General."

"Then what is it you speak of?" Mace asked.

The venerable Jedi cast his eyes down, and they grew smaller as his green wrinkles deepened. Mace was familiar with that expression, though he'd not often seen it; it was usually reserved for when Yoda felt uncertain.

"Recall, do you, the day Obi-Wan was brought to the temple?"

"That was thirty years ago," Mace said, arching an eyebrow. But he looked thoughtful. "I remember that you postponed our training to personally see to his arrival. I found that… unusual as a padawan."

"Tell anyone the reason for my interest, I never did."

"Why?" Mundi asked.

"Knew, I did, that the information was dangerous," Yoda said. "When born was Obi-Wan, an echo in the Force I felt – as though the new presence were redundant, or unnatural. And when brought to the temple he was, overwhelmingly strong the feeling grew."

Mace frowned, forehead sloped in confusion.

"I don't understand. What do you mean by redundant? How was his birth unnatural?"

"More to tell you, I do not have. Substantiate that feeling, I never could. Meditate on it for many years I have, but it has brought me no closer to the truth."

"Was it the dark side you sensed?" Mundi asked.

"No!" Yoda replied, startling in how emphatic he was. "Farther from the dark side than Obi-Wan, a Jedi cannot be."

As they neared the infirmary, Mace paused, his companions following suit. He couldn't find much sense, frankly, in what his friend was saying. And he wasn't sure what he was meant to do with the information.

"You said we couldn't afford to lose Obi-Wan. Why?"

"Felt those things in the Force for a reason, I did. And resolved they have not been. Sense, I do, that the fate of Master Kenobi and the fate of the Jedi are irrevocably linked."

Mace nodded, understanding Yoda's logic, if not the substance of his words. Sweeping a long hand over his mouth, then returning it to his side, he lowered his voice as a pair of younglings passed by.

"Have you spoken of this with Obi-Wan?"

"No. Never."

"Perhaps it would be wise to do so now," Mundi suggested.

Yoda shut his eyes a moment, sliding into the porous Force in search of some sign of its will. But where he was searching, it was empty; and where he was open, it was closed; and where he had faith in the grand design, it offered no faith in return.

His ears flattened against his head.

"Perhaps," he said.

* * *

_Padme stood at the courtyard's threshold, watching the Jedi watch the grass, a shade greener than the sort which grew elsewhere, and as his eyes followed each blade's sway, she wondered if through the simple act of observation she might be imbued with the magic of the Force._

_Perhaps she was too deaf even to possess it by osmosis. Or maybe its secrets and nature's were dead to the will of youth. It was unclear to her, as it was she assumed to many, and all she was left with was a handsome man, a touch more sophisticated than age should have allowed, and the unvarnished beauty of the things his eyes imbibed._

_He smiled slightly when he saw her._

_The acknowledgment compelled her to join him, lest she lose him to the notion that she was a girl with a crush._

"_It's a lovely day," he called to her._

"_No lovelier than yesterday," she called back, a little softer since she was approaching._

_He let out something not quite a chuckle, but more than a croon. It felt like he was singing a hymn, and it was meant only for her bones._

"_Perhaps not."_

"_What is it that fascinates you about the courtyard?" she asked, a little meek as she added, "If you don't mind the question."_

_His crisp blue eyes were alight with something._

"_Not at all, m'lady. It's natural to be curious. I'm afraid, though, I mightn't have a satisfying answer." He paused, and he looked so pure. "I suppose I simply find peace here. There's an... energy I can't describe."_

"_Energy?"_

"_A point of calmness. The same as I find in your company, actually."_

_It was a feat of discipline that she didn't duck her head at that, or betray even the mildest blush. She supposed she fell back on her ingrained diplomatic training, the same way a soldier might repeat his service number under interrogation._

"_I might argue the calmness is yours," she said, a bit reverently. "How you convinced the North and South to reconcile without bloodshed is something I'll never fathom."_

_He shrugged humbly._

"_I simply conveyed to them the cost, in credits and lives, of a protracted conflict or a Cold War. These men are hot-tempered, and corrupt perhaps, but they aren't without sense or decency."_

"_You say that as if it's the plainest thing in the world," Padme remarked with a giggle. "Others tried to tell them that – including me. What made things different when you said it?"_

_Obi-Wan grinned slyly._

"_Well, I am a Jedi, m'lady. Clearly my credibility surpasses that of the common Queen."_

_It was clearly meant in jest, but if anyone else had uttered the words, they'd have still seemed arrogant – like a real belief with a joke for skin. But he was, she knew, a servant of humility, or perhaps something more severe. There was no artifice with Obi-Wan, no entrenched notions of importance or grandeur. And she found herself mesmerized by it – by this beautiful glow which mistook itself for dark. It was so different than most, comforting and unintimidating, and it made her long to spend her life correcting his misconceptions._

"_I'll miss you when you're gone," she said._

Padme stared at the sleeping Jedi. His arms were covered in gauze, no doubt to protect the burns from tainted air. He was shirtless, but his chest was heavily bandaged, and the skin around it flecked with red blotches that looked like sunspots. And in spite of the beard and his pained face, he looked younger than she thought he should.

"Will he be all right?"

"Yes," the doctor said. "I believe he will be. It's a good thing you got him into a bacta tank as soon as you did, or I'm not so sure."

"His burns aren't as bad as I thought."

"We have the Temple healers to thank for that. I can't really account for the Force as a man of science, but there's some things I'm content not to know."

"You and I both," Padme said softly.

The doctor smiled kindly, and he was struck by her eyelashes, thick and long to protect her eyes from being seen, lest some preternatural truth be plain to the wrong person. She found a loose hair somewhere and tucked it back in place. He might have watched her a while longer, though surely against his will, but he was spared the act by the arrival of Yoda, Mace, and Mundi.

She turned to acknowledge them.

"Senator, we're pleased to see you're all right," Mace said.

Padme smiled slightly and, turning back to look at the sleeping patient, said: "Only because of Obi-Wan."

"Knew, we did, that he would succeed," Yoda murmured, contenting himself to watch his friend breathe. "Refuse, he does, all other outcomes."

He was right, and it did Padme good to hear him say it. She wasn't the only one who knew Obi-Wan was extraordinary. But perhaps everyone knew, and it was a lot to expect for people to always say it. She pushed the thought away.

"You and he are very close," Mace said. And she wondered if it was an accusation.

Padme's mouth pinched at the corners.

"He's a good friend. His strength is a great comfort."

Yoda was impervious to lies of omission, but only smiled serenely and grunted. She knew then, too, that he'd discovered the thing she wore so carelessly. He lifted his hover-pad a little, so that they were at eye-level.

"Senator, discuss, we would like to, a matter of great importance."

"Of course," Padme replied, though she didn't like his grave tone.

"Better, it would be, to discuss it privately."

"I'd like to stay with Obi-Wan for now."

"I'll look after him," a voice called from the doorway.

Mace and Mundi partied to allow the entrance of Aayla Secura.

Padme had never met her before, but she'd observed her speaking to Obi-Wan once in the Temple halls. She was surprised by the possessiveness the memory brought. Obi-Wan had spoken fondly of Aayla, having supported and mentored her when her former Master fell to the Dark Side. They were two wounded souls, and Padme supposed she couldn't understand the pain they had in common.

As the blue Twi'lek came to stand beside Yoda, the infirmary's bright lights illuminated the veins in one of the tentacles folded behind her head. Padme was struck by how beautiful the Jedi was – hazel eyes anchoring a soft face, with a small, pointed nose and full, pink lips fit to enrapture the common man.

"I'll come find you if he wakes up," Aayla assured her.

Mace glanced at Padme for a reaction. She appeared reluctant, but nodded after a second's thought. And as she and the others turned to leave, Aayla approached the beds along the near wall, and it was only then that Padme noted Eisley in the bed next to Obi-Wan's. She'd been so consumed with his well-being that she hadn't even noticed the other Jedi.

Aayla touched Obi-Wan on the head in a kind of motherly gesture, and then sat down beside Eisley and grasped her hand. It was only then that Padme realized Aayla was Eisley's apprentice. She wished she'd known that; she'd have said something kind.

* * *

He'd never seen such smooth metal before, or stepped upon more sterile ground. The hallway seemed to go on forever, and it was the width of a commercial transport, the ceilings extending up almost out of sight and crowned by a series of skylights which happily conveyed the day.

He looked out an oval window, staring until clock time gave way to the uncertain increments between thought and thought. At some point or another, a coarse voice floated behind him.

"Hell of a view," Landon said.

And it was. From where they stood, they could see other parts of the temple, namely the spires, which grasped at the sky like a youth just discovering what he could and couldn't reach. And just below the spires was the rectangular wing where the younglings resided, and Miler thought how strange it had to be to grow up a Jedi, to know duty and discipline as sure as the lines on your palms, and to follow a path which others chose for you.

"Aye, it ain't bad."

Landon gave him a sidelong glance.

"You doing okay, Kid?" he asked.

If Miler thought the inquiry ludicrous, he didn't show it. He shrugged.

"I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Look, I know I'm not the ideal candidate to give you the 'life goes on, they'll always be in your heart' bullshit pep-talk, but since her majesty is doting over Kenobi – "

Miler scowled. And the look alone could have filled the temple's halls with Sith sensibilities. But he looked more scared than angry, or lost perhaps.

Landon's comportment didn't change.

"Kid, there's no reason. Don't go looking for what can't be found."

"There has to be a reason," the young soldier claimed.

"Well, if there is, we're meant to be blind to it."

"It doesn't make sense. I'm not special."

Landon thumbed at some stubble on his chin, looking out at the temple spires again, which took the form of bayonets fated for a slaughter.

"We're all special," he said, and he thought of his mother. "Don't it mean something that in a galaxy with a trillion stars, and tens of trillions of galaxies like it – that in all of that space, there's only one of us each?"

Miler dipped his head, thoughtful, smirking, and then he scratched his neck and let out a snort and decided that things were okay, because being okay is a state of mind, and people can impose upon themselves any state they choose. He was fine, he decided.

He'd always been the practical sort.

* * *

Padme was surprised when she was led into the briefing chamber. She could recall waiting for Obi-Wan to come out of there a few times, but she'd never been inside herself. It was all at once more and less than she expected, stark and spartan, but properly foreboding for the business done there.

At the room's center was a massive holo-projector, where the Jedi no doubt employed visual aids in discussing strategies and retreats. She could imagine Obi-Wan looking grim, rubbing his beard as he studied situations.

"I'm not certain what could be so urgent," Padme remarked, dryly adding, "I hope you don't want my advice on troop deployments."

Mace walked over to the projector, pausing beside it indecisively, an act out of his character. His hand hovered over the console, before he squared his shoulders to look in her eyes.

"Senator Amidala, what we are about to tell you cannot leave this room."


	12. Malice

**A/N**: Hi, all! Back again, after a long hiatus. This chapter was 70% written about 6 months ago, but I never found the time to finish it. When factoring in my commute, I'm devoting 14 - 15 hours to work every day, so leisure time is in short supply. The time I do have is, as you might expect, devoted to loved ones and low-energy pursuits. As much as I enjoy writing, it does take a lot of focus. In any event: I'm sorry for the delay between chapters, but I'm sorry to say it may continue to be the norm.

Thanks to all those who have reviewed, especially those who take the time to leave such thoughtful feedback. It does help to sustain my interest and keep me coming back to this story, instead of other writing pursuits. As always, drop me a line and let me know what you think of this installment. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

"Senator Amidala, what we are about to tell you cannot leave this room."

Padme stiffened. It wasn't so much the declaration that evoked the reaction, but the thing in Mace's eyes. He waited patiently for her consent, until at last she nodded.

"We do not share this lightly. There are only four people that know this, and three are standing before you," Mace said.

Padme glanced at them one at a time, and different truths emerged from the eyes of each. She marveled at Yoda's, possessing something as deep as creation. The green Jedi was quiet, though.

"Are you at all familiar with the Architects?" Mundi asked.

Padme nodded slowly, surprised by the question. She'd not heard the name since grade school, and only then in a mythology course.

"They're said to be an ancient race, which predates recorded history. It's purported that they invented most of the technology in the galaxy," she recalled, adding with confusion, "But they're a myth. More primitive cultures regard them as gods."

"Primitive, are not we all," Yoda said, "when regarded by greater beings? Hmm?" He jabbed his stick chidingly, eliciting a frown from her. "But evidence, there has never been, to prove their existence."

Mace activated a small console.

"Until now," he said.

The holo-projector came to life, conjuring an image, translucent and in blue hues, of an open sketchbook, its worn pages displaying a detailed drawing of a chair, high-backed and wooden and brown, fringed intermittently with small crystals and capped at the top with a smooth circle, engraved on one end with a serpent and on the other with a tree.

Padme stepped forward, regarding the thing with fascination.

"What is this?"

"It's an artifact," Mace said, "recovered from a planet in the Outer Rim."

"How did you find it?"

"We didn't. We only received this image of it."

Padme's brow furrowed.

"From where?"

"We managed to embed an agent on Sidious' flagship. He sent us this yesterday."

"Sidious?" Padme puzzled. "What use do the Sith have for archaeology?"

Her eyes fell on Yoda for an explanation.

"If the creators of all technology, the Architects were, then very potent will be the things they left behind. Searching, Sidious is, for a power hidden by the sands of time."

"And this?" Padme asked, gesturing to the hologram. "What power is in this book?"

The wrinkles in Mace's cloak seemed to deepen, the same as those on flesh, and she felt like his padawan to see the frustrated look on his face.

"The power lies not in the book, but in what its pages illustrate."

Padme's frown deepened.

"The chair?"

"Yes," Mace said, turning his own attention to the hologram again. "We've had difficulty translating the corresponding text. But we were able to discern bits and pieces."

He glanced at Mundi, who – from his place on the other side of the projector – summoned a close-up of strange letters on the page opposite the chair. Padme looked intently, but couldn't recognize the language.

"It shares a few similarities with Early Rakatan, but is otherwise alien to us," Mundi explained. "We were able to derive its name, and one small descriptive phrase."

Padme met his eyes, schooling her features, a little of her senatorial primness revived.

"We believe it's called the Mercy Seat," said the Cerean, his tall, tapering head seeming to be two halves, and the top one seeming to sway. "And we believe it is described as the 'reaper of sorrows.'"

The light shined in Padme's eyes. She flinched and lifted a hand, sluggish suddenly. The room was silent to accommodate her. Padme shook her head when the hologram flickered.

"And you think Sidious is looking for it," she surmised.

Mace took a step in her direction, radiating calm, and she stared over his shoulder at the eerie image.

"Sidious seems to believe the chair is a weapon, one of unimaginable power. And if it truly exists, he'll not stop until he has it for his own."

Padme's affect darkened, and she shook her head as a dog rids itself of water, blowing out a miserable breath.

"Why are you telling me this?" she demanded. "What good could I possibly be in stopping him?"

Yoda hobbled from behind Mace into her line of sight, placing one hand over the other atop his cane and resting his weight on it. He was serene.

"Imperative, it is, that find the chair before Palpatine we do. Have the resources to launch our own search, however, we do not." He shook his head sadly. "Much blood and treasure has this war cost us."

"You want the senate to finance this," she realized.

"Yes."

"Then why don't you ask Chancellor Vallorum? Surely he would approve the request."

"Take the chance that this information will be disseminated, we cannot. Keep the knowledge from the Sith, we must. Spies in our ranks, they have."

Padme blinked away the hologram light. The secrecy they sought from her, while hardly unprecedented in the senate's annals, nevertheless challenged her notions of a transparent government. Would she be a hypocrite to heed their call?

Mace sensed her reluctance. And after a moment's hesitation, he glanced at Yoda, then Mundi. The Jedi affirmed their consent, and Mace faced Padme again.

"Senator," he began, his voice grimly quiet, "the war is going very badly for the Republic. Far worse than is generally known. Our estimates indicate that, within eight months, we'll be forced to surrender, or face complete annihilation."

Padme blanched. She looked down. Her hands felt rheumatic. She was weak, or angry. This wasn't the view they'd presented to the senate.

"Eight months?" she whispered, the words tasting of blood. "Who do you think you are? You've been _lying_ to us at our intelligence briefings?"

"It would not have helped matters to arouse panic in the Congress, or in the public," Mundi proclaimed. "Perception can be as dangerous as blasters."

"I never thought I'd see the day when a Jedi Master stood before me and defended deceit."

Mace's countenance hardened, and his eyes swallowed the steel around him. He gazed upon Padme sternly.

"I did not speak this truth so that we could face your judgment, Senator. And the rightness or wrongness of our decision is not the point."

"I disagree," Padme replied, calmly lifting her chin.

Yoda let out a long sigh, and there was an anguish maturing in him, formed through the ages from various pains, until at last it was crystallized in its ninth century. He was gentle when he addressed her.

"Understand, I do, your anger. But necessary, we felt it was."

A thought suddenly struck her.

"Did Obi-Wan know?" she asked.

Yoda's expression confirmed it. She pressed a palm against her forehead, feeling the fight leave her.

There was a part of her that was even angrier, for the betrayal went beyond those for whom she had respect to one a part of her very fabric. But she trusted Obi-Wan implicitly, and trusted that he'd suitable cause to undertake the ruse. The thought chilled her. To believe in a human being as much as one's own principles, or one's own intuition, was terrifying.

Padme let out a breath.

"Do you believe this… thing is a weapon?" she asked.

It was Mace who spoke, but the Jedi were as one.

"I believe," he said, "that it's our last hope."

* * *

Miler watched the water spurt up from the base of the fountain, before it was caught in a basin and flowed down a slide. Over and over, it did this reliably, in a way that people seldom manage.

There were some Jedi milling about – meditating or walking, alone or with others – and each took solace in the tranquil sounds and in the restive scents and in the lush green canopy of the myriad plants. Miler didn't suppose a man should rely on a place for his peace, but he could understand the need to.

He walked slowly along the stone path, the room so large that its exit was an inch-long object in the distance. The plants were wildly diverse, and though transplanted from divergent planetscapes, they seemed to wind around each other in a familiar way, so that they weren't red plants and green plants and yellow and so on, but a single life as complex as sentients.

Somewhere along the way, he stepped off the path and into the mass of trees. He kept on going, and there was no sign of encroachments, no wall to be found for as far as he could see. And the further he passed into the foliage, the closer he felt to a place far away.

_The open-topped transport rumbled as it smashed trees and fungi and bugs beneath its legs, dislodging the soldiers from their spots periodically. The air was humid and pregnant with death and disease, and whether borne to maturity or lost, some particle of each would forever fill the men._

_Miler unsnapped the cartridge from his rifle, holding it to the light and checking the power cell. Once satisfied, he snapped it back in place. He did that every five minutes for an hour, as the transport lumbered on._

_Felucia was a dismal place._

_It teemed with life, but the inverse also, and the enormous, green-petalled flowers, which were as high as ten men and bore in their centers a second, orange flower that extended fifteen feet higher from a thick stem, were carriers of gruesome things._

"_I don't suppose you have any sticks, do you?" the young man beside him asked._

_Miler blinked a moment, and then he shook his head at – was it Sergeant Dawson? He was glad not to oblige the filthy habit. Dawson frowned and sighed, then leaned back._

_No one said anything for a while, and Miler lost himself to that choppy thinking of the drunk and tired, drifting from thought to thought, until Dawson, who'd been flipping his gun in his lap like a bored child, leaned in._

"_You ever dream, Lieutenant?"_

_Miler smiled oddly. "Aye. We all do. It's a thing we have imposed upon us."_

_Dawson ran a hand over the length of his beard, tucking the ends under. He looked anxious._

"_I've been dreaming a lot lately. More than someone should, I think. Can't figure why. They're not even nightmares either." He paused. "Well, some are, I guess. But not all of them. Last night, I dreamt I was King of this place. And the plants didn't kill people and no one was fighting."_

"_Well, the way things're goin', ya may be King of this army by the time we're done."_

_Dawson shook his head, like he hadn't heard him. "It was weird having people bow. But kind of nice too. Maybe that's what being a Sith is: having people bow and enjoying it too much."_

_Miler laughed a little._

"_Ya wanna be a Sith now?" he teased._

"_Nah. No, I don't think so. And whatever's inside us that talks to the Force, mine doesn't tell me what the Force says back."_

_Miler glanced away, feeling each bump as they ambled down a hill. This wasn't a convenient form of travel. He wondered how much they'd paid someone to design it._

"_I dream abou' my mother," he said, surprised by the admission. "Sometimes I'm a kid. Sometimes I'm this age. It's nice t'see her, because I loved her very much."_

"_You believe in ghosts?" Dawson asked._

"_I believe there's things that linger," Miler said. "Whether it's whole things or parts of things, I don't really know. I'd like to think it doesn't end. It'd be such a waste of what we pour into a life."_

_Miler was surprised to find he enjoyed the conversation. He'd just settled into the new feeling when a grizzled man in middle-age stood up toward the front of the transport, face set in a scowl, and his speech was slightly impeded by the death stick dangling from his lips._

"_All right, listen up!" he shouted. "May not look like it right now, but things are getting pretty hot. We're about seven minutes from the thick of it. The Sith just punched through to our midline, so you better be ready to push back." He tossed his death stick over the side. "Man up, check your blasters, and I will see you in the jungle," he said. _

_Miler unsnapped the cartridge from his rifle, holding it to the light and checking the power cell. Once satisfied, he snapped it back in place._

"How's he doin'?"

Aayla glanced up from her seat between Obi-Wan's and Eisley's beds, studying the man's sleeping form before replying, "His body endured a great deal. A lesser person wouldn't have survived."

Miler could hear the warmth in her voice, and wondered about it. He circled around to the other side of Obi-Wan's bed, looking down on his placid face.

"He's a humble man," he remarked. At Aayla's expression, he continued, "Not all the Jedi I've met are tha' way. Saesee Tinn was a good man, but arrogant." He smiled slightly. "I hope ya don' take offense t'that."

"I take no offense," she assured him.

Miler was pleased at that, and so dragged another chair to the bed, taking vigil opposite Aayla. She decided she was glad for the company, leaning back in her seat a little and glancing at Eisley. The doctor had not been confident, nor had the Jedi healers been, about the Knight's potential for a meaningful recovery.

The soldier watched her eyes, hazel but for another color ringing around the edges. And they reflected the light and his own image back at him, so that it was as if her eyes were filled with his expression and his memories. He looked on her compassionately.

"She's your Master?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I didn't speak t'her, re'lly, but she was very brave on the planet. Came outta nowhere; prob'ly saved our skins."

Aayla nodded slightly, tracing the lines on one of Obi-Wan's palms, her blue hand a startling contrast against his white. Miler observed the gesture with affection.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said suddenly, laying Obi-Wan's hand on the bed. "I know how difficult it is."

Something flickered in Miler's eyes, but it was gone a second later. He lifted a hand to push his hair back, then decided the move revealing and set it in his lap. "War is difficult," he said.

She smiled sadly.

"You've known loss before, haven't you?"

"Haven't we all?"

"Yes, but not like you," Aayla said, holding her head at an angle. "I sense your life has been more difficult than you would have most believe." She glanced at Obi-Wan. "A comportment I've witnessed in others."

Miler preferred to believe she was observant, and not plundering from his mind. He lowered his eyes, echoing her smile of moments earlier. He sighed, chuckling humorlessly.

"I build m'life around people, is all." He ran that hand through his hair now. "It's a lovely thing while it lasts. But people go away. And then you're lef' with spaces."

Aayla smiled shyly.

"The universe is vast," she told him. "Filled with people."

Miler returned the smile. She reminded him of someone, he thought. But maybe that was just him concocting a reason to care for her.

"You're very wise. I see now why the General would count ya among his friends," he said.

Aayla felt a little slight to receive the praise, but recovered quickly. "Thank you. But I have much to learn." She decided the soldier was handsome, but that it mattered little to her. "I'm… not even sure they told me your name. And if they did, I'm embarrassed that I've forgotten it."

He extended a warm hand, and she could see it was calloused and scarred, in contrast to her own. "I'm Miler," he said, as he took her palm in his.

"Aayla."

* * *

"She certainly wasn't pleased with what we had to say," Mundi mused, perched on the edge of a console in the briefing chamber.

Mace nodded, but appeared unmoved. "I'd have preferred to tell her earlier, but we made the right decision. If the Senate discovers how badly the war is going, defections to the Sith will increase tenfold."

"We would have no choice but to assume control of the Congress, to avoid total collapse," Mundi said.

Yoda's ears bent back. His eyes, dull and sad, peered down at the floor. "To a dark place, this line of thought takes us."

"It will not come to that," Mace dismissed. "Senator Amidala will secure us the resources we need for our search. And when we find the chair, we'll end this war – once and for all."

Yoda had never considered himself a prideful creature, nor had he thought such of his contemporaries, but something about the certainty of the words made him wonder if all Jedi didn't harbor some measure of the thing which consumed the Sith.

He grunted faintly.

* * *

Landon carefully flexed his bandaged hand, feeling the damaged muscles spasm at the effort. Still, as far as blaster injuries went, this one was pretty mild. He remembered a pirate from Telos who'd lost the whole hand in a similar case.

He sat on a marble bench in the Temple promenade, watching Jedi and padawans pass by. There didn't seem to be that many, and it was surely owed, he thought, to the scope of the war – so many dead, and the remainder of the bunch out in the stars to wage it.

Thin bands of light pressed through a stained glass window, which followed the shape of the archway leading to one of the Temple's exits. It couldn't feel like home, a place this sterile. His mom used to tell him a place isn't lived-in until it's dirty and broken, and until there's graves to tie you down. But this place was clean and sturdy, and the Jedi burned their kin.

"I hear you'll be sticking around for a while," Padme said from out of sight, disappointed not to startle him.

"Yeah, that's right," he replied, crossing one ankle over the other. "That Organa fellow knows how to treat a guy."

"As opposed to me, I assume?"

Landon smirked.

"He didn't threaten to kill me. You'd be surprised how that tugs at a man's heart."

"Yes, well, I reserve such things for a special class of person," Padme said, and she looked on him as a frivolous distraction. She gestured to his bandaged hand. "I wanted to make sure you'd recover. Are the doctors confident?"

Landon wondered what made a woman like her despise him, and what thing compelled concern for one about whom she felt so. He grinned almost mockingly, raising the hand for inspection.

"Consider your conscience satisfied, your heinous."

Padme fought the urge to roll her eyes, instead nodding politely, and she could see his disappointment as she calmly bid him good day and continued on her path across the promenade.

* * *

_Dawson's body lay face-down in the swamp._

_Miler clawed his way over it without a second thought, grabbing up the dead man's blaster to replace the one he'd lost, and he plodded forward, displacing water in fierce splashes as he retreated toward the fall-back line._

_Blaster bolts trailed him, rippling the swamp water with a shrill hiss. Four or five of his comrades ran with him, and he cried out when one of them fell, a large chunk of her scalp scattered to the wind._

_He could make out the rest of his unit on the horizon, waiting to receive he and the other stragglers, but he was tired and hurt, and his heart constricted as another of his allies dropped into the water._

_He felt like he was wading through molasses, or it through him, and he was assaulted not by a fear of death, but by fear that his life had lacked significance, that were he to die, the opinions and acts that congealed to form his legacy would seem as empty as the death which ceased their accumulation._

_Another body dropped – this one his good friend, Tomin – but he could see the rest of his unit clearly now. They shouted to him. "Crata, c'mon!" one screamed. "Lieutenant, we've got you!" yelled another. But it was the last one he'd always remember – another of his friends, Ryna, an attractive woman several years his junior._

_He was close enough to see her blue eyes widen, then lower to meet his own, as she growled in a way women seldom do: "_Miler, look out!_"_

_His comrades vanished, replaced by a makeshift geyser which scraped the sky with swamp water, and by a wall of flames. The force of the explosion lifted Miler off his feet, high into the air, and blew him some twenty yards, depositing him into the water on his back. His mouth and nose just barely peaked out._

_All was black, and silent, and cold._

He sighed, peeling back his eyelids as some soft thing shook him. When his eyes, blurred by memory and by sleep, finally cleared, he looked up to find Padme's gaze on him.

She smiled when he grunted.

"That doesn't look very comfortable," she said.

Miler lifted a hand to rub his neck, fixing his awkward posture. He scouted his surroundings, finding Aayla's chair vacated and Obi-Wan and Eisley asleep in their beds. He wondered about the time. "He's not woken yet," he said, though he was sure she knew already. "But there's little doubt he'll recover."

Padme wished everyone would stop muttering such things – both because the comfort was unneeded, and because her transparency was startling.

She stared at a bandage on Obi-Wan's arm, and it moved her to touch the one on her own forehead, put there by the Jedi with tenderness the prior day. He'd risked so much for so little.

"I don't know what I would have done if I lost him," she admitted.

Miler watched her eyes as they roamed over Obi-Wan, and he wondered about the feeling of being looked on in such a way. "We all adapt, ma'am." He smiled gently, rubbing his eyes.

Padme looked him over, as she settled into the seat opposite him.

"You look very tired," she said.

"A little."

"You should go set some rest."

"And you?"

"I slept for a stretch earlier. And I plan to sleep more shortly. I'm only going to stay for a bit," she insisted, so sincerely that he almost thought it true. "You need it more than I do anyway."

Miler would have laughed if his throat weren't dry. "With respect, ma'am, I find tha' claim lacking."

Padme didn't bother responding, instead returning to her stubborn vigil, staring at the lids of Obi-Wan's eyes so intently that Miler felt sure she could see through them and into the Jedi's dreams. Her frown was fitting of the theory, for Miler had no doubt of the grim images which filled Obi-Wan's sleep.

He knew what it was not to rest.

_The Sith officer smashed his fist into Miler's mouth, whipping the soldier's head to one side, as his arms strained against the binders holding them to the chair. Miler licked the blood from his lips and swallowed it._

"_I'll ask you again: where is your Jedi commander?"_

_Miler stared ahead blankly. The earlier explosion had inflicted vertigo, and the effect was compounded by each bit of punishment._

_The officer back-handed him, this time catching him above the eye, where he opened a new wound. Miler grimaced, but swallowed his exclamations._

"_This is not a game," the officer warned, his voice dangerously low. "I am a more forgiving man than my Lord. If you do not give me the information I seek, I'll be forced to turn matters over to him. And my Lord has been known to use more… drastic measures."_

_He belted his captive again for emphasis. The young soldier grunted, his breath hitching briefly before he rolled his head back, meeting the officer's gaze through hazed eyes._

"_Lieutenant Miler Crata," he mumbled instinctively. "Service number: 3152-917-8A. Date of bir – "_

_The officer lifted his leg, then slammed his boot into Miler's face, breaking his nose and toppling the chair. Miler heard only footsteps, and the timid drip of water from a leaky ceiling, and on the cusp of dust, he loosely gripped the light._

* * *

Landon descended the Temple steps slowly, only now noticing the soreness in his knees. It was an unwelcome reminder that he wasn't far from forty, and that all the things which had in youth made him rebellious were calcifying into something pathetic and permanent.

He wandered into the heart of the city, coiling himself in people. And as they made their way, some with purpose and others blindly, to their respective destinations, it occurred to him how easily one's own affairs consume them. There was no war in these streets, and the myriad dead went unconjured.

Landon liked that notion, so he found a bar and drank.

* * *

Padme pushed some hair out of the Jedi's face. It wasn't long – it never had been – but it was a bit unruly. He thought it a prideful thing to use gel or the sort, so he was constantly brushing it back.

Her hand trailed down to tangle in his beard, lingering around the mouth, where it was the longest. The hairs hid a small scar underneath his chin, where he'd been scraped with the blade of a lightsaber. She understood his choice. He carried things with him as a ship does debris, accumulating it on his undercarriage. It wasn't vanity to want to forget something.

She'd sought, herself, to forget Anakin's fall. It hadn't surprised her, of course. Anakin's behavior had grown increasingly deranged, his fixation on her – and the paranoia with which it fornicated – as clear a sign as any of a man on the edge of darkness. Obi-Wan had known; he'd tried to help his charge. But for a man to be helped, he need still possess some good.

Padme thought of the day she met Anakin. She was still queen, then, and had stopped to see Obi-Wan following her testimony to Congress. Even then, when he was but a boy, short enough to vanish in the folds of Qui-Gon's robe, Anakin had terrified her. To what she could attribute that fear, she didn't know. Perhaps, the same as an arthritic person can foretell rain, she sensed in her joints the calamity to come.

Obi-Wan's eyes fluttered open, and a shaky breath sputtered from him.

Padme took his hand, and when his eyes resolved to fully open, they were met with a murky smile, mirthful but exhausted.

"You again," he mumbled tiredly.

Her smile widened.

"Would you prefer it were R2?"

"I'm not much in the mood to be lectured by a droid."

"How about by a senator?"

"I suspect," he slurred, "that I'm in too fragile a state for lectures of any ilk."

There was truth sometimes in banter, so on his hand she drew circles with her thumb, moving her chair to a more intimate distance. Obi-Wan's lips twitched at the ends.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. "I should get the doctor."

Obi-Wan ignored her.

"How are the others?"

"All accounted for," she assured him. "Though…"

Padme glanced over her shoulder at Eisley. His eyes followed her to his supine comrade.

"Bad?" he mumbled.

She nodded sullenly, squeezing the hand she held. His expression pricked her, but platitudes would have insulted him.

"The others?"

"Miler's fine. R2's being repaired right now. And Landon – "

"Landon?"

Padme dipped her head, pressing her forehead against his arm. With each question, her fatigue seemed to double. When she lifted her head again, she found him frowning.

"I suppose I have a lot to tell you," she said.

* * *

_We often dream of dying, or of almost dying, and so some fear nightmares as they do death's specter. But truly the most terrifying is the murky state between sleep and awake. Nightmares beguile us, mining hyperbole from our unshuttered minds, but at our core we're wise to the ruse, whereas the murky state collects elements of the real and the ruse and blends them, so that our wisdom cowers, and while most think of death as a sort of slumber, it's more likely that death is the murky state prolonged, a confounding mix of past and ether which chains us to dirt and dark._

_Miler could hear footsteps circling around him, and they sounded like his mom's footsteps and like the interrogator's, and like his own as he walked across his childhood room and across Felucia's diseased façade. He could feel the Force, and the lack of the Force, and everything in-between._

"_What is your name?" a cruel voice asked._

"I said: what is your name?"

When the writhing soldier didn't answer, the query was punctuated with a kick to the ribs.

The black-hooded questioner walked the rim of the room, watching dispassionately as his crony, a young Sith officer with a permanent snarl, delivered a second kick, then booted the fallen soldier in the face.

"You have an impressive resistance to the Force. You may resist our torture for a time as well. But no man's will can forever cloak a secret. Sooner or later, you will tell us what we want to know."

The soldier grimaced, shuddering in pain as blood trickled out of him. The black-hooded man stepped forward now, into the dim light, and his face, a putrid amalgam of burned and stitched flesh, capped at the scalp by two horns, reflected the soldier's own death back at him.

"I'll ask you once more: what – "

The cell's comm-panel chirped, and a voice from the bridge interceded. "Lord Malice."

Without moving, or breaking eye-contact, the Sith demanded, "What is the purpose of this interruption?"

"Forgive me, sir, but Lord Sidious requests your presence."

Malice's red eyes bore into the soldier's a moment longer. Then he walked to the door of the cell, turning back at the entrance to declare, "I shall have what I want from you."

_Miler, still tied to the turned-over chair, listened as the footsteps grew distant, until once more he was alone – he and the end and the beginning, he and the light and the dark._


	13. Mission

**A/N:** Greetings! So, as always, a long wait between updates. However, I've been working on this chapter for a loooooooong time, and I'm happy to report that this is an enormous update. This is about three chapters in one, length-wise. I thought the information, developments, and flashbacks here should all be kept together.

For those of you who are following the story, either through alerts or just lurking, but have yet to comment, please do me a favor and leave a review. It's much more gratifying writing when you can get feedback from the people who are reading. So, anyone and everyone, let me know what you think - praise, criticism, confusion, requests, etc.

Thanks a lot for reading, and for enduring the long wait between updates that real life, regrettably, always necessitates. I hope you enjoy this installment!

* * *

"_Now is not the time for this discussion."_

"_I don't believe you'll_ ever_ find the time."_

"_Padawan, I've made my decision. It is not your place to question it."_

"_I'm not your padawan anymore," Obi-Wan reminded him, stepping in to block his path. "The boy is _dangerous_. We all see it. Why can't you?"_

_Qui-Gon leveled a firm stare._

"_Young one, it is not for you to decide this boy's future. It was the will of the Force that brought me to him. It is a matter of fate that he be trained, and that I be the one to train him."_

"_Forgive me, Master," Obi-Wan replied easily, "but I fear your faith in the Living Force has numbed you to reason. Master Yoda was right. This boy's future is clouded. And for all your feeling that he is the Chosen One, I've equal feeling he'll take another path."_

_Qui-Gon glanced down, uncharacteristically docile. It wasn't out of the younger man's character to challenge him in this way; it was common, in fact. But the accumulation of Obi-Wan's doubts wore on him now._

"_I know you haven't always agreed with me, but do you think so little of me?"_

"_Don't pretend you're hurt; it's beneath you."_

"_Do you believe me so incompetent, Obi-Wan, that I would let Anakin join the Sith?"_

"_I find it troubling you believe you control him," Obi-Wan countered. "If you haven't noticed, the Jedi Order is losing some of its greatest members to this dark lord! These were good and venerable people. And yet you presume your will alone shall save this_ boy_ from evil?"_

_Something flashed in the elder man's eyes, but he quickly smothered it, and he was placid after that. Jedi training had a way of neutering human tendencies. He shook his head._

"_I'm sorry that I was wrong," he said, smiling sadly. "You weren't ready for the trials. Evidently, you have a long way to go."_

_Qui-Gon brushed past him and continued on his way. The sound of footsteps held Obi-Wan captive, and he watched his master's outline get smaller and smaller, until it finally disappeared._

Obi-Wan hobbled through the temple halls, righting his gait to conceal his pain when others came passing by. A few people tried to engage them, about the war or about his health; he answered curtly and kept moving.

He didn't suppose Padme would be happy if she saw him up and about. She'd only agreed to get some sleep when he agreed to stay in bed. But right now, he needed answers. If what Padme told him was true, Yoda might have a way to end this war, once and for all.

* * *

"Have a seat, Lieutenant."

Miler obliged him, but maintained an anxious posture. He took note of all the plaques and photographs in the office – awards for valor, pictures with famous leaders. Somehow all the knickknacks angered him.

The Major smiled slightly, hands clasped in front of him.

"You've been through hell, son."

Miler blinked. "Aye."

"You were already due for some leave," the Major said. "Given what's happened, I think – "

"All due respect, sir, I'd much prefer a transfer." He registered his superior's surprise, and added, "Somethin' in th'core worlds, if ya have it. They'll need good people soon enough."

The Major eyed the boy a moment, nonchalantly, and then betrayed some curiosity as he leaned back in his chair. Miler hated that. These office types were desperate to control a situation.

"Lieutenant, I'm at a loss," the elder man said. "Most men cherish their leave." He peered into the boy's eyes, not with empathy or sadness, but a need to understand. "Don't you have someone? A wife, a girlfriend? Family?"

Miler focused on one of the photographs – of the Major posing with Padme. It was clear from her posture that they weren't even acquainted. He decided some people were wired wrong, that they used others as raw materials, to build a world which excluded the needs of others.

"Aye," he said. "There's someone."

* * *

Once, a man had told Aayla that to be a Jedi was to deny your feelings, while denying nothing at all. She'd live with that for a lot of years.

Doctor Stall was something of an ogre. His stomach inched forward over his pants, hanging down, as if the belt were land and the unformed flesh was dangling above a chasm. A crooked nose sloped miserably into the gray of his mustache. And his sleepy brown eyes held none of the feeling of Obi-Wan's

"How is Master Pathij?" he asked.

Aayla made a show of relaxing in her chair. "Unconscious still, but improving."

"It must be difficult seeing someone you love in such a state."

"A Jedi is forbidden to love."

"Many people forbid many things. But we all have free will."

"And I choose to follow the code with mine," Aayla declared. "I am concerned for her, certainly. She serves the Force well. The galaxy is better for it."

Stall's eyes roamed over her, noting how stiff she looked, even as she leaned back. These Jedi could be so obstinate. It was no wonder they fell, as repressed and confused as they were.

"You don't like talking to me, do you? You don't like me asking these questions."

Aayla smirked. "Does that surprise you?"

"Not really. There aren't a lot of you who enjoy their sessions. But I would hope you can see why they're important," he said.

"'An impartial party with a speciality in Jedi psychology, who can determine the likelihood that a Jedi will fall to the Dark Side.' Yes," she said, her cool voice straining slightly, "Master Yoda made it quite clear to us."

"Have you had any urges? Any strong emotions?"

Aayla stared calmly. "None."

Stall held her eyes, making some notes on his data pad. The ceiling light shone down on her in such a way that he could see the vein in one of her tentacles throbbing. She breathed easily, one eyebrow slightly arched. He took is at a challenge.

"You realize, if I believe any of your answers to be false, I'm obligated to report it to the council," he said, his beady eyes blackening. "They take my recommendations very seriously."

"Tell them what you feel you must."

"You aren't telling me the truth about your emotions. Whatever you're feeling, if not dealt with, is dangerous."

"I will deal with my emotions in a time and manner of my choosing."

"Stubbornness," Stall spat, "is a trait of the Sith."

Aayla's face darkened. "What do you know of the Sith?"

"I know that I've spoken to over 300 Jedi, and that the overwhelming majority of them are struggling with temptation." He knew he'd struck a chord there. "You can't prevent yourself from giving in to emotion if you don't first acknowledge its existence."

The quiet made him think he'd finally won, broken through the girl's defenses, but in reality she was steeling her resolve.

Aayla uncrossed her legs and stood, looking down on the taller man.

"Failure to divulge something to you, Doctor, is not failure to acknowledge it," she said. "I do not, and never shall, count you among my confidants. My thoughts and feelings are my own, and your _interrogation_ – " He flinched at the word " – shalln't change that."

Stall recovered, eyeing her passively as she walked to the door. She didn't wait for a response, and she didn't look back.

When she'd left, and he was alone, Stall leaned back, pressed a button on his data pad, and remarked: "Patient exhibits anger, frustration, and paranoia, connected in part to the declining health of her current Master and the betrayal of her former one. I would call her likelihood to fall moderate, and recommend that she be closely monitored."

* * *

Yoda eased out of his meditation, eyes fluttering open. He sensed a figure in the doorway. Each person has their own cognitive scent, and Yoda knew well and could distinguish between those of each Jedi.

This one was calm and determined, and had helpings of confidence and self-doubt, and it wove pure light through its every disparate pattern. If he was honest, Yoda felt, repressed as it was, some modicum of love for it.

"Resting, you should be."

"I can go if you'd like," Obi-Wan replied easily.

Yoda could hear the wry smile in his voice.

"Already here, you are. Come sit down."

Obi-Wan obliged him, crossing the room and slipping into the chair opposite his friend. It was the height of day, but the room was dark. Yoda had dimmed the lights to abide his contemplations.

"How feel you?" the old man asked.

"I'm well."

Yoda grunted. "Hoped, I did, that time would dull your stubbornness."

"It has dulled many other things, I assure you."

The banter came effortlessly, but Obi-Wan was clearly distracted. A small crease formed between his eyes, and Yoda said, "Spoken with Senator Amidala, you have."

"She wasn't very happy."

"Understandable, her reaction is. The right thing, we did, but understandable still."

"Padme said you'd news. She spoke of a weapon that could destroy the Sith, but I was…" He smirked. "Skeptical."

Yoda grunted softly. "Certain, we cannot be."

"But you believe it's so."

"Yes."

"She said what you showed her was a picture in a book. A chair."

"A ghost of the ancient times," the green Jedi mused.

"The Rakatans?"

"The Architects."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. The Infinite Empire was the earliest civilization historians could fully document. Not much was known about the Architects (there were legitimate scholars who doubted their existence), except that they created much of the technology necessary for the development of sophisticated societies.

They built the first cities and spaceships and hyperspace routes, colonized various worlds, and then without explanation disappeared from the galaxy, their sundry innovations left drifting for future peoples.

"If it's as powerful as you believe, we could end this war. But if it fell into Sith hands…"

"Find it, _we must_," Yoda declared.

Obi-Wan nodded, peering through the window blinds out at an orange horizon.

He could feel Yoda's eyes on him, and conjured a tired sigh.

"Why do I get the feeling life's about to be complicated?" Obi-Wan asked.

"_Why do I get the feeling I won't like what you're about to suggest?" Obi-Wan asked._

"_You said it yourself: he's grown increasingly reckless. Something has to be done."_

"_He won't listen to me. He never has."_

"_Perhaps not. But you're the only one who has a chance," Mace insisted. "The council's efforts to reign him in have failed. His psychiatric evaluations indicate he is at high risk of falling to the Sith. For a man in that frame of mind to be overseeing the tutelage of young Skywalker is dangerous."_

_Obi-Wan shook his head, demanding, "Then why don't you just take Anakin away from him? Reassign him to another Master? For goodness sake, it's in your power!"_

_Mace eyed the man compassionately. He could sometimes forget that Obi-Wan was just twenty-four. It wasn't fair to place this burden on someone still discovering his potential._

"_Obi-Wan, you know what would happen. He'd not accept it, and neither would Anakin. Prying them apart would drive them both to the Sith," Mace said, desperation surfacing. "We cannot let Anakin's power fall into enemy hands. It would mean the end of the Jedi, and the Republic."_

_Of course, he was right, Obi-Wan knew. But that didn't make the assignment any easier._

"_He's the only Jedi I know who's never been wrong about anything," Obi-Wan said. "How do you tell a man like that that his actions, if continued, will ultimately destroy the galaxy?"_

_Mace looked away, then walked to the window. He gazed out into the Coruscant night. "I wish I knew. But I don't," he said. "What I know is that Qui-Gon Jinn is poisoning that boy's mind. And if we're to save them both, the Master must be devenomized."_

* * *

Sidious was flanked on each side by Dooku and Vader, as they walked between two neat rows of Sith soldiers standing at attention.

Vader skimmed the mind of each minion, and observed their rigid bodies, and took great pleasure in all the fear he felt and saw. He seemed to need it. We all have one thing, one feeling our blood requires, and we devote our lives to battling anemia. Vader's blood was healthy.

Malice received the party, bowing to Sidious. "My lord."

Sidious moved past him, walking purposefully toward the hanger exit. Malice fell in step beside him, and the others followed in tow.

"What have you learned from the prisoner?"

"I had just begun my interrogation when you arrived."

"Return to it at once. Find out what he knows and who he told about it," Sidious said. "Destroy his mind if you must."

Dooku stepped forward, so he was on his master's other side. "My lord, we have an opportunity before us. We could reprogram his mind, send him back to the Jedi."

"There is no time for that. We must move quickly if we are to prevent the Jedi from finding the artifact."

"I will prepare a level four mind probe," Malice said. "He will talk. Then he will die."

Sidious smiled cruelly.

Back in the hanger, the Sith soldiers relaxed their postures, listening to the eerie clatter of the dark lords' fading steps.

* * *

It was a pointless exercise – rejecting one's emotions. The Jedi thought enlightenment could be achieved only through repression, and that one feeling was the gateway to every other. They thought that, by embracing love, one gave comfort to fear, and that fear was anger, and that anger was hate, and that hate was suffering.

But she'd seen what repression caused also. Her master, by not addressing his emotions, had allowed them to grow inside him, evolving until they developed their own intelligence and fought with the host for control of the body. She couldn't let that happen to her. She had to allow herself the feelings, and process them as best she could.

Aayla smoothed down the petals of a shriveled flower, one killed by her anger through some osmosis. She was sad to have done it.

"Would ya mind some company?"

She hadn't sensed the man, and was thus startled, but managed a smile and shook her head.

"I hope I'm not disturbin' ya," Miler said. "Ya seemed to be contemplatin' somethin'."

Aayla braced her forearms on the concrete garden wall, and leaned her weight forward. Miler adopted the same posture, probably a little closer to her than was polite.

She felt an inexplicable warmth in her. "I suppose I was."

"Anythin' I can help with?"

"I believe not," she said, before the disappointment on his face filled her with regret, and she added, "Unless you can explain my own psychology to me."

Miler smiled slightly. "Still workin' on my own, actually. But I'd love t'listen, if you'd like to talk about it."

Aayla looked down at her hands, clasped in front of her.

She thought of all the reasons she shouldn't say anything, then bravely remarked, "Sometimes I don't trust myself."

"That's not so strange."

"But it is dangerous."

"Where's it come from, the lack'a trust?"

Aayla felt a mass of memories, corded like a muscle, spasm in her mind's eye. She could hear the voice of Quinlan Vos – that self-righteous, tireless voice – telling her to cut loose her empathy, like it were a thread on a shirt, and that peace was the absence of all her sentient feeling.

She said, "I believe it's ingrained in me, as it is in all Jedi. We're taught from birth that emotion, any emotion, is to be eradicated, lest it consume us."

"That's not re'lly fair – or re'listic. And anyway, Saesee Tinn couldn't do it. I witnessed his anger."

The revelation startled Aayla. She asked, "What sort of anger?"

"The kind that scares people like me."

"I remember a few of the padawans talking, but I never would have believed it."

"But ya do now?"

"Yes," she said. "I trust you."

Miler stymied the urge to touch her hand, and ducked his head to hide a grin. He couldn't account for the happiness he felt. But when she got that far-off look again, he sobered. He peered at her with conviction.

"The way I figure it," Miler said, "if a Jedi Master – was he on the council?"

"Yes."

"If a Jedi Master, serving on the council, can experience such strong emotions, it's only natural for you to feel them also. And I'd argue yours are the more productive."

"How do you mean?"

"I saw the way ya looked on your Master, and on the General. Love and compassion aren't weakness. They're beautiful."

"I feel anger too," she insisted.

"I'm sure. But it's dulled by the other feelings, isn't it? Ya see, I think anger is more spontaneous than love, and so it's harder to suppress. When ya feel anger, and there's no counterpoint in your experience, it burns a hole in you. But if there's love t'measure it against, you've a chance to put the fire out."

It sounded so simple when he said it. She felt affection for the ease with which he dismissed 25,000 years of Jedi teachings. It was a brazen act, and yet he did it humbly.

After a long moment, she said, "It's nice talking to you, Miler."

He didn't respond, too dizzy with giddiness, but he lay his hand over her clasped ones. She stood rigidly, a dark blush forming, and she thought she liked the feeling.

* * *

_There was an eeriness about the temple menagerie, and it seemed to constrict the petals of the flowers, so that their anthers spat out pollen at an accelerated rate. There was – if not a dark presence, a neutrality to the light._

_The menagerie animals were the docile sort, or at least made that way by the calmness of the Force, and they roamed freely throughout the open room, which was infrequently interrupted by steel support beams and stairs leading up to an observation balcony._

_In the middle of all the flora and fauna, which spanned hundreds of feet on all sides, Qui-Gon stood stroking the fur of a lazy kybuck._

_A man entered the room from the far-side, and even before his footsteps were audible, Qui-Gon called out, "Hello, Obi-Wan."_

_He could hear the scrape of boots now, and each step pricked him with the memory of a dream, of a vision. He'd waited for this moment for a number of months, praying it wouldn't come and that the vision had lied, but all along knowing otherwise._

"_How is the old girl?" Obi-Wan asked._

_Qui-Gon turned finally, smiling thinly._

"_She's all right. A bit heavy, but captivity can do that."_

"_Yes, I suppose it can," Obi-Wan said, stopping beside him and running his hand over the kybuck, who startled. "Easy there, girl."_

_Qui-Gon's smile faded. "She doesn't like you."_

_Obi-Wan pulled his hand back, letting it disappear into the folds of his cloak. He appraised his mentor discreetly, noting the tiredness in his eyes and the way his dominant hand lingered at his side, in reach of his lightsaber._

"_No. I don't suppose she does," Obi-Wan said finally. "She used to. It's funny how creatures change."_

_Qui-Gon eyed him carefully._

"_What can I do for you, Obi-Wan?"_

"_I just came to see how you were doing. I understand your mission to Belaria was cancelled. They're sending Master Granger to negotiate for the bacta instead."_

"_He'll take my place ably."_

"_Anakin must have been disappointed."_

"_Anakin will weather it, as he always does."_

_Obi-Wan took a step back, then glanced about as if enjoying the scenery, and asked, "Are you certain?"_

_Despite his nonchalance, Qui-Gon knew him too well not to notice the way his right hand flexed, or the way his body was only half-turned, so he could he observe his old mentor peripherally._

"_Anakin is strong in the Force, and in his own mind," Qui-Gon declared. "He's been, by far, my most capable student."_

_Obi-Wan flinched. "Capable of what, exactly?"_

"_Of learning the ways of the Jedi Order, and fulfilling its vow to the Republic."_

"_There are those who believe it is not the Jedi way he's learning."_

"_Do you speak for the council?"_

"_I speak for none but myself."_

"_That pretense insults us both," Qui-Gon sneered. "Whose errand are you running? Master Windu's? Yoda's perhaps?"_

_Obi-Wan met his eyes dispassionately. "I'm just checking on an old friend."_

_Qui-Gon suppressed a snarl, but the feeling behind it entered the kybuck, and in its fear it whined and raised up on its hind legs, then let loose a desperate cry and hurried away from the Jedi._

_Obi-Wan watched it dash across the menagerie, leaving a trail of trampled plants, and he glanced at Qui-Gon's hand again – still in reach of the lightsaber._

"_You always were narrow-minded, Obi-Wan. Dogmatic. I tried to make you see what was in front of you," Qui-Gon insisted, "but you closed your eyes to anything not sanitized by the council."_

"_I saw it, Qui-Gon. I looked at what you showed me, and I made my choice."_

"_As Anakin will make his."_

"_He's too young. You're making the choice for him."_

"_Speak not of what you know nothing about, _padawan_."_

_Obi-Wan looked down, releasing his fear and his anger into the Force, before beginning to walk in an arc. Qui-Gon matched the movement, and soon the men were circling each other._

"_Then I'll speak of what I do know. I know that three days ago, you removed a Sith Holocron from the archives, without informing a librarian," Obi-Wan said. "And that you returned it in secrecy in the middle of the night."_

_Qui-Gon smiled darkly. "Yes, it is true." He shook his head then, as if disgusted at his friend's indignation. "You act as if it's a crime."_

"_It is," Obi-Wan growled._

"_We are at _war_, man! Do you not think it prudent for our young ones to understand what we are fighting?"_

"_That's why we have Jedi Masters to _explain_ it to them – not to _expose_ them to it! This war has proven how corruptible the mind of an adult is, so what chance does a _boy_ have when subjected to the teachings of a dark lord?"_

_The men's eyes were locked, neither conceding anything. Qui-Gon's mouth twisted into a grin. He chuckled mirthlessly._

"_I've known this day would come for a while now. I foresaw it," he said, and Obi-Wan watched his hand. "Your purpose here – the council's purpose – is to take Anakin away from me."_

"_Our purpose is to help you. To reel you back from the place you've gone."_

"_You damn _fools_!" Qui-Gon gnarled. "This boy is our last chance! If he's taken from me, he will never reach his potential. The Jedi Order will shrivel and die, and the Republic will drift through sorrow and darkness for millennia to come. Don't you_** see**_? Anakin and I will use the Sith's malevolence against them!"_

_Obi-Wan lowered his head, despair coursing through him. He felt the beginnings of tears in his eyes, but they evaporated at his suggestion._

"_No one is going to interfere with my instruction," Qui-Gon declared. There was rage in his eyes, slowly waking as if from hibernation – and the warmth of a father could not be found._

_Obi-Wan slid a hand through his hair, ransacking his mind for solutions. But in the end, when his thinking was done and he peered in the eyes of the man who had raised him, there was only one truth._

"_You can't train that boy," he said quietly. "I won't allow it."_

_Qui-Gon ceased his arc, and Obi-Wan followed suit, so that the two men faced each other, eight feet apart. For a while, neither moved, and no words were spoken._

_Finally, Qui-Gon unclipped his comm-link from his belt, slowly raising it to his lips._

"_Anakin?"_

_After a silence, the boy answered, "Yes, Master?"_

"_Gather some things. We're leaving here."_

"_Where are we going? Are we back on the mission?"_

"_Just pack your things, Anakin."_

"_Yes, sir."_

_Qui-Gon clipped the comm-link back on his belt, staring defiantly._

_Obi-Wan stared back, silent tears sliding down and disappearing into his cloak._

_He squeezed his eyes shut, releasing a haggard breath into the air and into the Force. He waited a moment, then took a longer, steadier breath, and unclipped his lightsaber._

_When he opened his eyes again, the weapon hissed to life._

_Qui-Gon switched on his own lightsaber, easing into a fighting stance, the glow of his green blade casting a strange light that filled the whites of his eyes._

_Obi-Wan dropped into his own stance, face warped with pain._

"_I love you," he said._

"Obi-Wan?"

His eyes unblurred, coming into focus on Mace, who had a hand on his arm to ensure his balance. He smiled politely.

"Sorry. I'm fine," Obi-Wan said, straightening his back. "Please, go on."

Ki-Adi-Mundi regarded him sternly. "It would seem I was correct: you should be in bed, Master Kenobi."

"It was a moment of dizziness, I assure you. It's passed." Before it could be disputed, Obi-Wan turned to examine the hologram again. "The descriptive text – you said the language had similarities to Rakatan?"

Mace nodded. "I'm planning to have a linguistic analysis done."

"By who?"

"I'm not sure yet. We'd like to keep this as quiet as possible. We need to be selective in who we trust."

"And you trusted Padme?"

"Quite frankly, we had no choice," Ki-Adi-Mundi interjected. "If we're going to find the artifact, we're going to need transportation, supplies, situational funds across multiple currencies…"

Obi-Wan crossed his arms skeptically, hissing under his breath as they pressed on his wounded chest. He glanced at Yoda.

"Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves?" he asked, gesturing to the hologram. "We have a book with a picture in it, and some text we haven't translated. _Where_ exactly are you planning to go?"

Yoda's hover-pad angled around. "Familiar, are you, with Palmer Trask?"

Obi-Wan nodded. "Of course. He left the Jedi Order just before the war began."

"Claimed, he did, that too interventionist we had become."

"I was nine years old. I remember Qui-Gon telling me he was a coward."

"He's not a coward," Mace said, "but he may be a traitor."

Ki-Adi-Mundi keyed something into the console, and the hologram morphed from a book into a slowly revolving planet, with a summary of its characteristics. Obi-Wan stepped toward the projector, eyes narrowed in curiosity.

"What's this?"

"The planet where the book was found," Ki-Adi-Mundi said. "Our operative said it came into Sith possession by way of a local archaeologist. A Lantoran man."

"Trask?"

Mace leaned back against the console, and said, "It would make sense. We know that when he left the Order, he began studying ancient cultures. And he's published a few articles about the Architects in academic circles."

"Master, I didn't know the man, but I have a hard time believing he would work with the Sith. He left the Order because he was an isolationist, and now he's suddenly getting involved in the war – and on the other side, no less?"

"To a man, strange things will war do," Yoda reminded him.

Obi-Wan sighed. He was tired of divining truths from the hearts of other people. He felt nostalgic for that simpler time when he was a youngling, when there was peace among the planets and motivations were easier defined.

"Perhaps his cooperation wasn't willing," Ki-Adi-Mundi suggested. "Our informant said nothing of the circumstances, only that he knew from whom the book was obtained."

Obi-Wan nodded, clearly preferring the second explanation. He stepped closer to the projector, peering into the translucent image, before walking the console's edge with his head bowed. Ever the general, he was strategizing.

His companions waited, and finally he said, "Whatever his motivations, he's the only lead we have on this thing."

Mace nodded.

"Agree with you, we do," Yoda said. "Assemble a party, we shall, to meet Knight Trask and discover what he knows – and to find this 'Mercy Seat' before the Sith do."

"I believe Master Windu is the ideal choice for the mission," Obi-Wan said.

"No!"

Yoda's vehemence was surprising. It was a rare occasion when he spoke forcefully. And there was a strangeness in his eyes, also, that Obi-Wan had never seen, one which drew him toward its gravity.

"It must be you, Master Obi-Wan," Yoda said.

The young man frowned. "Me? With all due respect, if we are pinning the outcome of the war on this one task, I'd suggest we send our most capable member."

"Your self-doubt, I do not need!"

Obi-Wan looked to Mace and Ki-Adi-Mundi to gauge their reactions, but their neutrality told him nothing.

"May I ask why you're so adamant that it be me?"

There was an impatience on Yoda's face, but it faded after a moment, and he let out a tired sigh. It wasn't a simple answer, evidently.

Without a word being spoken, Yoda glanced at Ki-Adi-Mundi, who switched off the holo-projector and moved from his place at the console to the foot of the steps, beside Mace.

Obi-Wan looked on them with confusion.

"I believe this is a conversation best had privately," Mace said.

He and Ki-Adi-Mundi climbed the steps and exited the room.

When they were gone, and the door was secure, Obi-Wan demanded, "Would you care to explain why everyone's acting like I'm the Chosen One?"

Yoda smirked and grunted. His hover pad rose so that he and the human were eye to eye.

_Qui-Gon lowered his base slightly, so that he and Obi-Wan were eye to eye. They began circling each other – and carefully, for each knew in their bones the tendencies of the other._

_Obi-Wan was a cautious swordsman, relying on endurance and opportunity – imposing his will only at key moments. He'd mastered this style. At twenty-four, he already rivaled the Order's best duelists – a list which had once included Qui-Gon._

_The older man had aged well, both in appearance and in body, but at sixty-five, his skills were declining. And his style – aggressive and powerful, relying on hard strikes and brute strength – was best practiced by the young._

_Qui-Gon lunged at his apprentice, his saber easily parried by Obi-Wan, who completed a full spin just in time to block the second blow. The protégé began to backpedal across the menagerie's main walkway, blocking Qui-Gon's heavy, overhand blows._

_When they were near one of the staircases, Obi-Wan surprised Qui-Gon by executing his own two-handed strike, causing their sabers to glance off one another with a low hiss, before Obi-Wan kicked him in the ribs. As Qui-Gon reeled from the blow, Obi-Wan slammed the hilt of his weapon into the man's face, breaking his nose and knocking him to the ground._

_Qui-Gon grunted from his back, his lit lightsaber still in his grip. His nose smashed, his breath was a putrid, wheezing wind that depressed the flowers around him._

_Obi-Wan looked down on him without an ounce of pride._

"_Are you done?" he pleaded. "Will you listen to reason now?"_

"_The boy needs _me_," Qui-Gon croaked._

_Obi-Wan smiled sadly. "I agree. But he needs the man you were. And I swear, if you let me, I'll help you find that man again."_

_Qui-Gon replied with a sweeping swing at Obi-Wan's feet. The protégé leapt to avoid it, and the lightsaber slashed through the stems of a half-dozen plants._

_Qui-Gon rolled back, found his feet, and shot his palm out, the Force working through him to hurtle Obi-Wan backwards toward the staircase, where he bounced off the railing and dropped to the ground, his lightsaber rolling away from him._

_Pain shot up his spine, from the tailbone to his neck, and it was youth and gumption alone that allowed him to rise, first to his knees, and then to his feet. Qui-Gon charged toward him, green saber raised in the air with one arm, as if he were leading a charge. He drew back for a wide swing, but his lightsaber skimmed off the railing, as Obi-Wan leapt out of its path and up to the balcony above._

_Qui-Gon followed him with his own leap, gripping his weapon with both hands and swinging it down like a hammer. Obi-Wan dodged the strike, then called his lightsaber from the ground below, switching it on just in time to stymie a second attack._

_Once more, he backpedaled as Qui-Gon, with a growing sense of frustration, swung and swiped and lunged, turned away in every effort by his protégé's defenses. When Obi-Wan was approaching the wall, he forced his lightsaber down on Qui-Gon's, so that the green blade struck the floor and drew sparks, allowing Obi-Wan time to flip over his elder's head, reversing their positions._

_He followed with a swift kick, knocking Qui-Gon back into the wall, the green lightsaber sent ricocheting off the balcony railing and disappearing into the flora and fauna below._

_Obi-Wan extended his weapon, so that the blue blade was just inches from his Master's throat. The dull hum of the lightsaber, and Qui-Gon's wheezing breaths, were the only sound between them._

_If the mind is its own earth, and the present a wind moving us from a past destination to a future one, then perhaps memories are the dust, and as the wind travels it sucks up and accumulates them, so that when a new destination is reached, it's filled with the old particles. But then, past and present and future are really only contrivances. We live with them simultaneously, parsing them out to avoid the fatigue of deeper thought._

_There were particles of his teen years, and of more recent times, floating through Obi-Wan. But amidst the memories, Qui-Gon's anger clutched his tissues like a parasite._

_Wrinkles appeared around Obi-Wan's mouth, and on his forehead. For a moment – just a moment – he wished he were in Qui-Gon's place, and Qui-Gon in his._

"_Please," he whispered, and the muscles in his back quivered with the tension. "Enough now."_

_Qui-Gon glanced over the railing into the flora and fauna below._

* * *

Landon threw back another shot. It burned less than the first few; his throat was accustomed to the intrusion. He wasn't drunk yet. As he accumulated years and drinks, it took more and more to gain the right effect.

He ordered another one, glancing over his shoulder at the pair of Twi'lek thugs watching him from the back of the cantina. He threw back the last shot, barely feeling it, and decided he'd had enough. This situation required an uncluttered mind.

Landon spun the empty glass around and around on the table. He thought about the chain of events that brought him to this stool on this day. There was a sadness that threatened to open old chambers in his compartmentalized mind.

He wondered if his son was well, if his absence from the boy's life had given him a fighting chance, or driven him toward the things Landon didn't want for him. And he thought of the boy's mother too, and of his own mother, and about how everyone's looking for a connection, but most go without one.

Climbing down from the stool, Landon tossed some credits onto the bar and made his way toward the exit. On the other side of the cantina, the Twi'leks walked a parallel path, then cut across to meet him at the exit.

As the rest of the cantina busied itself with its various affairs, the vibration of loud music echoing in his chest and a slave dancer shimmying about in a cage to his far left, Landon came to a stop, looking casually on the two Twi'leks, one blue and one green.

"Evening, gentlemen," he said nonchalantly.

The blue one smiled slightly. "Hello, Mr. Solo."

"What can I do for you?"

"Were you going somewhere?"

"Yes, actually. I was on my way to the orphanage to volunteer. Would you care to join me?"

The green one narrowed his eyes. "On behalf of Neecho, I cordially invite you to his palace on Axxila."

"I donno. I ain't fond of long trips."

"Fear not. You'll sleep the whole way."

The green one raised his blaster, but Landon smacked his arm and the shot sailed wide, instead striking an Irodonian man, whose neck was torn off at the back.

Landon belted the green Twi'lek in the face, knocking him down, but fell himself a moment later when the blue one struck him in the temple with his blaster. But as the blue one stood over him, ready to deliver the kill shot, the green one leapt on top of Landon, raining punches down on his face.

After a series of blows, the green Twi'lek took note of Landon's bandaged hand, injured in the firefight on Sarna, and slammed his fist into the open palm. Landon howled, but didn't cower before the pain; his eyes hardened and he kneed his assailant in the stomach, driving the breath out of him.

For just a moment, there was space between their bodies as the green Twi'lek rocked back. Landon reached for the thug's dropped blaster at the same instant as the blue man fired at his head. Landon rolled his neck, so that the shot grazed him, but was absorbed by the floor.

Landon pressed the blaster to the green Twi'lek's forehead, and fired a shot that went clear through his skull and continued on to strike the blue one in the chest.

The green man's body slumped down onto Landon, who was awash in its brain matter. The blue one lay on his back a few feet away, unmoving.

Only now did fear grip Landon, and it was stronger for its delay. He took long, shuddering breaths, like a child emerging from a nightmare.

Death was all around, everywhere, and when the fear receded just slightly, and he felt death on top of him, Landon shoved the green man's corpse to the side and struggled to his feet, cradling his injured hand.

All eyes in the cantina were centered on the smuggler. He took a long look around, shaking, then reached into his holster and discarded his blaster, replacing it with the green Twi'lek's.

With a final glance at his failed assassins, he hurried out the door.

* * *

Sidious peered out from under his black hood into the interrogation room, separated from the screaming prisoner and his Sith tormentor by a thick piece of glass. He smiled at the sight.

"He's told us everything he knows," Dooku remarked.

"Yes. But there's a truth in his suffering as well."

"Now that the Jedi are aware of the artifact, how do we proceed?" Vader asked.

Sidious watched as Malice outlined the soldier's face with the tip of his lightsaber, carving a trail across the top layers of skin.

"You, Lord Vader, will assemble a group our finest warriors – and men with knowledge of the creators of this artifact. And you will find the chair before the Jedi do."

Vader gave Dooku a sidelong glance, reveling in the trust bestowed upon him by his master. He inclined his head graciously.

"It will be done, my lord. I will start with the man who gave us the book."

In the interrogation room, Malice pierced the skin deeper, so that a gaping hole formed under one cheekbone. When he saw that the soldier had finally lost consciousness, he drew his blade back in frustration and stepped away.

"Once we are in possession of the weapon, we shall eradicate the Jedi, and those who give them comfort, once and for all," Sidious said, the flaps on his deformed face seeming to tighten at the thought. After a moment, he smiled at Vader, adding, "And we shall have peace."

* * *

"Recall, I do, the day you were brought to the temple."

"I'd say it must seem like a lifetime ago," Obi-Wan said, "but considering who I'm talking to…"

Yoda's mouth twitched at the joke. Perhaps more than anyone he'd known, Obi-Wan was unfazed by danger or confusion, or any other feeling which, in other men, bred fear or contempt for the source.

To the younger man's surprise, Yoda's hover pad descended to the floor, and the green man climbed off, taking up his cane and walking a few ambling steps, until his back was turned to his companion.

"Remember that day, I do, because of the feeling it put in me."

Obi-Wan frowned. "What feeling?"

Yoda sighed. The things he had to say were, in their way, allergic to articulation. He lay his hands one over the other atop his cane, then leaned his weight on it.

"When born, you were, an echo in the force I felt. And when brought to the temple, you were, much stronger did it become."

"And where did this echo lead you?"

"Meditated for years, I have, but no closer have I come to the truth," Yoda said grimly. "Say, I can, only that your presence, perhaps existence, felt… unnatural."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "I don't understand. Unnatural? I was only four when they brought me to the temple, but I had a normal childhood before that. A loving mother."

It was asking a lot for Obi-Wan to accept, solve even, the riddle Yoda had carried for over thirty years.

"Strange, for you, this must be. Surprised, I am not, that you felt none of this," Yoda told him, scratching some of the whiskers on his head with a clawed hand. He took a couple steps with his cane, thinking on it before saying, "Redundancy, your birth was. But what that means, I cannot tell you."

Obi-Wan sighed. This certainly wasn't clearing anything up for him. He paced a small strip of floor along the bottom of the staircase, searching inside himself for some atom of what Yoda described. But he found nothing.

"Why are you telling me this now?" he asked.

"Because I know that tied to the artifact, this feeling is. Lead this mission, you must. In your hands, the fate of the galaxy is."

The words swept over Obi-Wan like a tide, swallowing all his sense and serenity. But the terror he felt never reached his eyes, and it wasn't evident to Yoda.

"Your misplaced confidence never ceases to amaze me," he said mildly.

Yoda grunted and replied, "And amazed, I always am, by your terrible failure at self-evaluation."

Obi-Wan smirked, laughing under his breath.

And then, as was his habit, Obi-Wan gathered all his fears and doubts into a collective entity, pushing it into a deep corner of his mind for later examination, and instead taking up the practical concerns of the mission now before him. There was much to be done.

"I trust you'll allow me to select the team myself?" he asked.

Yoda nodded.

"It's no – " Obi-Wan braced a palm against his forehead, dizzy. Yoda watched with a pang of guilt; less than a day ago, his friend was struggling for life. But Obi-Wan blocked out the pain, righting himself and continuing, "It's no easy task, and yet the names are apparent to me."

"Oh?"

"I'd like to bring along Lieutenant Crata."

"Trust the boy, you do?"

"Yes, Master. He saved my life."

"Request who else, do you?"

The younger man thought on it. He had to consider who was most capable, of course, but also who he could trust, and who was most likely to accept his leadership. He welcomed discussion – it made for better decisions – but in the end, it would be imprudent to add Jedi in positions of leadership. How could he exert authority over his hierarchical peers?

"Knight Secura. And Knight Pascal; his knowledge of ancient history would serve the mission well. Is Master Loma available?"

"Dead, she is," Yoda said bluntly.

Obi-Wan flinched, but the news rolled off him in his focus. He poured through other names, writing most of them off for various reasons.

"I'd like take a doctor along, but I'm not sure who."

"Perhaps, a suggestion, Senator Amidala may have."

"Yes, that's a good thought. I'll go see her later."

He didn't say anything after that, considering the merits of a final member, prompting Yoda to ask, "Another selection, have you?"

Obi-Wan teased at a grin, thinking he must be crazy for even considering it. He couldn't deny that he owed this person, though, or that they had a way of getting things done.

"I'd like to bring Landon Solo, as well."

To his surprise, Yoda said only, "Then bring him, you will."

* * *

Padme woke from a deep sleep.

Her dream followed her out of it, hanging on desperately, so that it might be branded into her mind, the same way waking events are.

She looked about familiar surroundings as if they were alien, before settling into her true consciousness. Everything was as it should be. All her adornments were in place on the wall, and the gown on her body was the same she'd lay down in.

Sitting up in bed, legs dangling over the edge, the important things slowly returned to her.

She needed to check on Obi-Wan, and she needed to iron out the details of, and sign off on, the mission proposed by the council.

Once free from the fog of sleep, and with her task list in place, Padme checked the chronometer on the end table. She'd slept for over ten hours. At that revelation, she wondered if it was worth checking the infirmary for her Jedi. In his stupidity, he was no doubt gallivanting about the temple, undoing his doctor's work.

Padme showered, fixated on her dream as the water poured down on her. It was so vivid, so tangible, that she felt certain it had actually happened – that a real experience had somehow been put in the wrong box in her brain.

When she finished bathing, she put on some clean clothes and forced the memory aside, striding out of her apartment with purpose.

* * *

"Hello there."

Aayla and Miler looked over their shoulders to find Obi-Wan standing.

"General!" the soldier exclaimed, grinning. "You're either a fast healer or tot'ly mad."

"They're not mutually exclusive," Aayla quipped.

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "Don't you two start with me. Between Padme and the droid, I get quite enough critiques."

Miler chuckled softly, and it did the Jedi good to hear it. He knew what the boy had lost, and what debt he was owed. This wasn't a moment to leave things unsaid.

Obi-Wan looked on him with affection. "Miler, I didn't have a chance to tell you before, but it's important that you hear it. Without you, Padme and I would surely be dead. I can never repay you for that, or repay your friend Leona. But I thank you sincerely, and I offer my friendship."

He extended a hand to the soldier. Miler stared at it, trying to process the Jedi's words, before realizing his rudeness and grasping the palm in his own. He gave a gentle shake, smiling.

"Jus' doin' what I could, General," he said. "I'm happy t'see ya well. Relatively."

Obi-Wan returned the smile, before releasing his hand and turning to Aayla, who looked on him with some combination of tenderness and relief.

His face was gentle. "Aayla, I'm – I'm terribly sorry about Master Pathij. I only wish – "

She shook her head, and worked quickly to assuage his guilt.

"Master, it's not within your power to decide how a speeder crashes. And anyway, the prognosis was much more positive when I spoke with the doctor earlier. They think there's a good chance she might eventually recover."

"I'm relieved to hear that."

Aayla glanced at Miler with some measure of mischief, before saying, "I'm certain Senator Amidala will be relieved to see you up and moving. I trust the doctor cleared you to resume your duties, since you're wandering about like this."

It was hard enough having one friend fuss about him like a wife; he didn't need two. But Aayla's remark was as much to tease him as it was to express concern.

"I'm afraid I haven't time to lie in bed," he said grimly. "There's something I must do. Something of great importance. And I need your help – both of you."

This seemed to spark something in Miler. He'd been drifting since their return, looking for a new thing to hitch to.

His eyes shone brightly. "Name it, and it's yours."

* * *

Quinn Pascal wasn't easy to get along with. He wore recalcitrance as armor to protect himself from others' judgments. As a Trandoshan, his face and body had much in common with the reptilian species of a number of human worlds. Even in the safety of the Jedi Temple, he'd suffered bigotry and hate - sometimes directly and sometimes in the form of disgusted glares. These experiences were deeply embedded in his psychology.

He was a gifted communicator in that he could easily distill complex concepts, but he had no use for social etiquette and made no effort to spare others' feelings. This made it difficult to send him on diplomatic missions and, combined with his failure to ever accept a padawan, had prevented him from becoming a Jedi Master. That didn't appear to concern him, though. He preferred studying history in the Jedi Archives and on other worlds.

He was finishing up a report on the siege at Kromor when Obi-Wan came to see him. And it didn't take much convincing before he was packing a bag for the trip.

* * *

Padme's prediction was confirmed when she returned to the infirmary. Obi-Wan was nowhere to be found. But she was surprised to find a new occupant sitting on the bed.

Landon sat patiently as a nurse unwrapped the bandage on his hand, soaked through with blood. He glanced away when he caught sight of the skin, pulled apart again by his encounter with the Twi'leks.

"Are you all right?"

Her voice roused him out of a memory, and glassy eyes met vibrant ones.

"I'm fine," he said quietly.

"He may be fine, but he spoiled some good suturing," the nurse interjected without sympathy. "I'm going to need to re-stitch the whole thing – and probably add a few too."

Landon sighed. "Well, let's hope it's a gentler process than last time. I'm a hero of the Republic, you know."

The nurse rolled her eyes. "Aren't you all, dear."

When the nurse got up to find some thread, Padme caught her first glimpse of the injury, recoiling at the valley between the two halves of his palm. He'd earned that pain protecting her, she reminded herself.

She tried to smile encouragingly. "I'm sure you'll be fine in no time."

"Is there something I can _do_ for you?" Landon snapped.

Given the state of his hand, his tone was understandable, even if she'd become accustomed to the calmness of her Jedi.

"I'm looking for Obi-Wan," she said. "Have you seen him?"

Landon shook his head. "Boss man was gone when I got here."

Padme thanked him, or maybe she only thought of doing it, and left. When her trips to the council chamber and to Obi-Wan's office proved fruitless, she went to the last place she could think to look, and waited patiently.

* * *

Obi-Wan shouldn't have been surprised to find Padme waiting at the door to his quarters. Nor should he have been surprised that, despite his every effort at discretion, she easily perceived the pain of his infirmities.

"Hello there," she said, with a hint of his accent.

He smiled. "Hello. Did you get some sleep?"

"Yes, quite a lot of it. And what have you been doing?"

He didn't miss the accusation. But somehow, even after all this time, he couldn't fathom her care for him. It felt as if the lid were removed from his imagination, so that it poured out of his mind, and Padme was expressing an invented affection.

"I'm afraid I had some preparations to make," he said, opening the door to his quarters.

Padme frowned and followed him inside. "Don't tell me…"

"Assuming you can sign off on the request this afternoon, I'll gather supplies tonight and leave in the morning."

"Obi-Wan, you're in no condition to go anywhere. You shouldn't even be out of bed."

He unclipped his comm-link and lightsaber, setting them on an end table in the living area, then retrieving a data pad from a shelf. Immediately, he began searching the temple database for information on Belilal – the planet he was bound for.

"Padme, I assure you, I am well able to stand," he said calmly, smiling. She felt condescended to. "And, according to this, Belial is two days' travel from here, so I'll have plenty of time to recuperate in transit."

"Two days? You were _shot_! You had severe radiation poisoning! Two days is hardly enough time to recover. And knowing you, you'll probably decide to space-walk for half the trip anyway."

"That's not a bad idea. I hear it's therapeutic for the joints."

Padme's mouth pinched at the corners. "Obi-Wan, you don't seem to have any regard for your own well-being, but I do. Please respect that."

His smile lost its mirth. He sighed softly, and erased the breech between them, meeting her eyes for a moment, then laying a palm on her shoulder. His light demeanor had been for her benefit, but clearly the tactic failed.

"I'm sorry," he said gently. "I don't mean to – to belittle your kindness. I'm grateful for your concern, but it is unwarranted. Truly, I'll be – "

She caught him when he stumbled forward, watching his eyes flutter briefly, before he placed a hand on her hip to steady himself, blinking to clear his vision. This man could so infuriate her.

"Yes, you're as healthy as a bantha," she quipped, before softly saying, "Come lie down before you fall down, you dear fool."

When he only nodded, eyes shifting in embarrassment, Padme led him into his bedroom, and guided him onto his back on the bed. He groaned, but lay his head on the pillow finally, letting his eyes slip shut.

Padme sat down in the chair next to his desk, watching his smooth face wrinkle with pain lines. She wished she could uncoil all the hurt wrapped around him, physically and in the spirit – or that he'd even acknowledge them so she could try. He trusted her more than anyone, she knew. She'd seen his vulnerability before.

But he was a hypocrite about burdening people. While he welcomed and encouraged her to share her problems or insecurities, he felt immense guilt about sharing his own. When he showed what he perceived to be weakness, took comfort from others, he somehow concluded that he'd done them grievous wrong. And yet, as much this frustrated her, she couldn't begrudge him the feeling. His selflessness, and his doubt of self, were so deeply embedded in his psychology that to change them would be to change his nature, to change who he was – and she adored who he was.

A few minutes had passed in amicable silence, when Obi-Wan rolled his head to look at her and said, "I'm sorry, Padme."

"About what?"

"Not telling you what I knew about the war. It was difficult for me, but when the council voted to exercise discretion in its reports to the Senate, I didn't think it was right to allow my friendship with you to –"

"Obi-Wan, it's okay," she interrupted. "I understand why you didn't tell me, even if I don't agree with the council's decision. I'm not angry with you."

His mouth turned up at one corner, and it was enough to convey his gratitude. His head rolled back, and he was about to shut his eyes when, she said, "There's something you should know."

He looked back at her.

"I'm going to be coming with you tomorrow," she decreed.

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "I think not, milady."

"Well, Master Kenobi, considering I'm supplying the civilian ship and the credit line, while keeping the mission a secret from all my Senate colleagues, I'm not sure you're in much of a bargaining position."

The Jedi sighed. This was a terrible idea. Aside from his desire – need, more accurately – to keep her from harm, Padme's presence on the mission would do nothing to ensure its secrecy.

"Padme, I can't allow that. You're too important to the Senate to be gone from it right now, and given your profile, your absence would invite countless inquiries. It would be almost impossible to maintain secrecy."

Both good points, she thought. There was a reason they called him the Negotiator. But she didn't give up easily.

"I'll feign illness," she said. "We can say that I'm being hospitalized in the temple, so that I have access to Jedi healers."

"And what about your responsibilities to the Senate?"

"From what Master Windu told me, if this mission fails, there won't be a lot left for me to vote on."

Obi-Wan winced, lifting a hand to rub his forehead. He didn't need to be reminded of the situation's enormity. His head was throbbing now, and he knew he'd eventually capitulate anyway – he often did with her – so with a shake of his head and a deep sigh, he surrendered.

"All right. But I have some conditions."

"I'm listening."

"You are not to put yourself in undue danger, and you'll have to accept my leadership, the same as everyone else."

"Of course. I'd have done that anyway."

"Then welcome aboard," he said, shutting his eyes. He scraped a palm across his aching head.

The hurt was almost palpable to Padme. Without thought to how he might judge the act, she walked around to the far side of the bed and sat down, sliding over until she was next to Obi-Wan.

As the bed sank with her weight, he opened his eyes and dropped his hand, regarding her inquisitively. She smiled gently, coaxing his head off the pillow and into her lap.

"Padme?"

"It's all right. Close your eyes, okay?"

He watched her a moment longer, tentative before complying. Her small fingers found his temples, and she began lightly kneading the muscles. Almost immediately, he blew out a contented breath. And it took her tremendous discipline not to kiss him for it.

"That's lovely," he whispered.

After a time, her hands slid up into his hair, her nails lightly raking over his scalp. His breathing got slower and deeper under her ministrations, until at last it was automated as the Jedi gave into sleep.

All the lines of pain and worry were gone now, and it was remarkable how little he'd really aged since she met him on Naboo. She thought perhaps the beard was, at least in part, to convey age and experience, for fear his face betrayed none.

She brushed his hair back and shut her own eyes, and at least for then, for that instant, the war didn't touch her.

* * *

Dooku stood with his back turned to Sidious, who sat behind a thick steel console, casually inputting something into the computer. The bearded man stared out into his space with a sour countenance.

"It's dangerous to send Vader," he said.

Sidious looked up from the console, and Dooku turned to face him.

"His power grows greater with each day," he continued, "while his stability continues to weaken. If he is to access the secrets of the Architects, we won't be able to control him anymore."

Sidious' bright eyes glowed. "Lord Vader shall fulfill his destiny."

There was unflinching certainty in the words, as if he knew the outcome already and it had been planned since the dawn of the galaxy, slowly crystallizing after billions of years.

"What destiny is that?" Dooku asked.

Sidious smiled, showing his jagged yellow teeth.

* * *

Palmer Trask was a late arrival to the temple. At age seven, he'd been the fifth-oldest youngling ever accepted into the Jedi Order. But if one were to judge age by the accumulation of profound experiences, surely he was the oldest.

His father, Aurelian Trask, was a man with a dark disposition. The majority of his life had been spent mining dolovite and other ores, usually on Mimban or Mustafar, and he'd taken on the latter planet's volatile disposition. When he was around, which wasn't often, there was a kind of red mist permeating the house, so that each occupant saw the others through an angry haze. Palmer's father did things, and his mother abided it.

The sun beat down on the old tent where Palmer sat now.

He turned over a small crystal in his hands, as he tried to ascertain its authenticity, cool brown eyes studying the divots. When he determined it had no historical or financial potential, he pitched it out of the tent, watching it land in the sand.

Palmer ran a hand through his thinning brown hair, the wet locks hanging down just past his shoulders. A thick mustache traced the top of his mouth, then followed its curve for an inch on each side. To a stranger, he might have looked like a healthy man in his sixties. In reality, he was fifty-three the hard way.

The man slowly lowered his hand. He wasn't alone. He didn't need to see the shadows looming in the sand to tell him. Once you've sensed the Force, peered through its prism, it's with you forever. He could feel a darkness just outside.

Palmer stood and ducked through the tent door, finding himself face to face with Darth Vader.

"Salutations," the archaeologist said easily, smiling. But the curve of his lips brought nothing to his eyes.

* * *

Obi-Wan slept for about three hours. When he woke, Padme was gone. In the kitchen, he found a note telling him she'd gone to the senate to requisition what they needed for the mission, and that she'd return to the temple to stay the night.

He felt a bit uneasy at her solution: claiming she was critically injured and being seen to in the temple. Surely colleagues or friends would want to come check on her progress. How would the council deny them access to the infirmary?

That was for Yoda to deal with, he supposed.

Obi-Wan left his quarters feeling a little more rested than before, though the pain pricked at him still. He navigated the temple's long corridors, until he stood outside the temporary quarters of his guest. With a tap of his thumb on the door panel, he announced his arrival.

Seconds later, the door slid open to reveal Landon, dressed but still wet from a shower. The smuggler grinned.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," he said casually. "They told me you were dead!"

"Is that right?"

"Well, either they said it or I thought it. Can't really remember. Either way, I guess you ain't. So congratulations."

"Thank you."

When Landon made no move to step aside, Obi-Wan asked, "May I come in?"

"Sure, Boss," the man said, leading him into the living area. "Make yourself at home. I guess it's more yours than mine anyway."

Obi-Wan sat on the edge of a cushioned chair, signaling it wasn't his intent to stay long. Landon eased onto the couch, leaning back and holding his good hand behind his head.

"What can I do for you?"

Obi-Wan smiled slightly. "I suppose I have a proposition for you."

"The lucrative kind?"

"Not particularly, no."

"What's in it for me then?"

"Probably nothing."

"Aren't you supposed to be the Negotiator? This pitch is garbage, Boss."

"I was planning to exploit your ego, but I don't suppose you'd fall for that, would you?"

"Works pretty well for women, but not with you, no."

"Then I suppose I shouldn't insult you by suggesting you'd be doing a great service to the Republic."

"Republic. Sith Empire. Just names to me."

Obi-Wan nodded politely, looking neutral now, and stood.

"I won't waste your time then," the Jedi said. "Sorry to have bothered you. I'll be gone tomorrow. Lieutenant Crata and the senator also. But you're welcome to stay at the temple for as long as you need."

He began making his way to the door, feeling Landon's eyes track him the whole way.

"Kenobi, this better be good."

Obi-Wan smiled.

* * *

The window blinds cleaved the light, so that it passed into the room in harsh slivers. Meant for meditation, the space was bare but for three ottomans. Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan formed a triangle where they sat, each of them hunched forward contemplatively.

The Force filled the room like a separate air, and with each breath it entered their chests, until it was elemental to the men. Dread spread through Mace's body. The imbalance he'd felt in the Force for more than twenty years ago felt stronger than ever, and seemed to be driving the galaxy toward a final conflict that would decide the fate of every sentient.

"I sense a change coming," the dark man said.

Yoda squinted his eyes. "As do I."

"I can't account for it, but I sense it also," Obi-Wan said, and there was fear in his voice. "It feels as though the Sith's rise to power all those years ago is somehow connected to what I'm about to do."

Mace shook his head. "But how? They didn't know about the artifact until now either."

"As I said, I can't explain it."

"Strange feelings, these are," Yoda said. "Always in motion, the future is, and yet, in its own way, so is the past."

The mysterious words hung in the air.

Yoda looked on the man before him, hidden from scrutiny by a beard, and the green Jedi traveled backward in time, remembering a man whose hair was lighter and longer, and then a young man with a clean-shaven face, and then a boy – an ebullient boy who dearly loved his master. And then he traveled further; he followed the baby to the womb, and the fetus to the seed, and that seed to its creation.

But the journey yielded nothing, no answers to his questions, only a reaffirmation of how precious the man was to the Force and to the Jedi.

"Our last hope, you are, Obi-Wan."

The young man only stroked his beard, with the far-off eyes of a wounded child. The burden wasn't fair, but Yoda knew he was fit to carry it. He always had, from the time he was a youngling until this new moment.

"I will do what I must," Obi-Wan said.

* * *

_Anakin's tired eyes slowly opened._

_The box spring creaked as Obi-Wan sat down on the edge of the bed. When the boy rolled over, he found the grim, sad face of his master's friend peering down at him._

"_Master Kenobi?"_

"_Hello, Anakin," the Knight said softly._

_Anakin rubbed at his eyes, slurring sleepily, "What're you doing here?"_

"_There's something you need to know, and I wanted to tell you before you sensed it or dreamt about it. You have a propensity for visions, I know."_

"_What is it?"_

_The innocence of the question nearly broke him. Obi-Wan fussed with the covers, smoothing them down, though the boy was too old for the gesture. He kept opening his mouth, but the words receded into him. How he could explain this? How do you deliver such news of one's father?_

_Anakin gripped the sheets tightly._

"_Is it Master Qui-Gon?" he asked._

_Obi-Wan looked down, shuddering, and he couldn't blink back the thing that filled his eyes. He clawed at his mind, at his heart, at his innards in search of consoling words. He tore into the ether for some sentiment to soothe him. But there was nothing._

_Obi-Wan pushed the boy's hair back, letting him feel something, and nodded._

"I found you a doctor."

Obi-Wan blinked, severing himself from a reverie. "I'm sorry?"

"I said I found a doctor. He comes highly recommended from Senator Organa, both for his skill and his discretion."

"Good. If you could send me his information, I'll add him to the mission roster."

Padme smiled. "Just like that?"

"I trust your judgment, and you trust Bail's. I'm sure he's suitable."

He led her down the hallway toward her guest quarters. By now, reports were being disseminated about her sudden and life-threatening illness. Obi-Wan still wasn't fond of the ruse, but it was necessary. Not that he wanted her to go in the first place, given the danger she'd be exposed to.

She'd always been fearless, though.

No, not fearless. She had many fears, as do we all, but she overcame them with a courage summoned only by alcohol in others. She found hers through some natural constitution, and through relying on the people she was closest to.

If he was honest, he had to admit some secret happiness when she told him of her fears, when she needed his strength because hers was depleted. And when she took his counsel and comfort, she'd walk once more into the terrible galaxy and bravely fight to tame it. That's what friendship was, and that's how courage endured. She'd done the same for him, more times than he could count, and he was better for it.

"Obi-Wan, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Do you think it's possible to have a memory, something you've repressed or just forgotten, manifest itself in a dream?"

He glanced at her, but Padme's eyes were guarded.

"It's certainly possible," he said. "There's things we bury from time to time, for various reasons. Sometimes the Force can uncover them, or a new trauma."

She nodded thoughtfully.

Obi-Wan paused in front of her guest quarters, touching her arm. "We're here."

Padme shook herself from her musing, forcing a smile. "Well, thank you very much, Master Jedi."

"Was there some reason you asked that – about dreams?"

"It's nothing," she said. "Don't worry about it."

Obi-Wan nodded politely. Not because he believed her, but because he had no right to the information. If she wanted to tell him, she would. And his sympathetic expression made that known.

"Well, then, I suppose we should both get some sleep. We leave in the morning," he said.

"I'll meet you at the landing pad. I left orders with Republic Intelligence to see that the provisions were brought onboard the ship."

"Republic Intelligence?"

"They're used to all the secrecy. They don't ask as many questions as the army office."

Obi-Wan bestowed a bemused smile on her. "You are very wise, milady, and I will be pleased to have your counsel on this mission." She appeared grateful for the praise. "I'll leave you now to get a good night's rest."

She nodded, just barely smiling, and thumbed open the door.

"Sleep well, Obi-Wan," she said, holding his eyes for longer than was appropriate.

"Sleep well, milady."

She disappeared inside. As Obi-Wan continued down the corridor toward his own quarters, he knew he'd not sleep well. He never had, and he never would.


	14. Disembarkment

**A/N:** Hello, all! Been too long a delay, I know. Real Life is just awful, isn't it? Keeps you from doing fun stuff. After a long wait, I'm happy to post this new chapter, and to report that the next one (which is longer) is all but done. Real Life is rearing its head again after a holiday break, but this story's on my mind and I'm going to continue working on it as time allows.

This chapter is a character development piece. The next one digs into the plot in a way that I hope will be satisfactory.

One thing I should alert you to: the previous chapter included a description of a new character named Quinn Pascal. After some reflection, I've decided to go a different direction with the character and have rewritten his description. For convenience, the new description is included below.

As always, feedback - the lifeblood of fic writers - is appreciated! Hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter 13's Description of Quinn Pascal**

Quinn Pascal wasn't easy to get along with. He wore recalcitrance as armor to protect himself from others' judgments. As a Trandoshan, his face and body had much in common with the reptilian species of a number of human worlds. Even in the safety of the Jedi Temple, he'd suffered bigotry and hate - sometimes directly and sometimes in the form of disgusted glares. These experiences were deeply embedded in his psychology.

He was a gifted communicator in that he could easily distill complex concepts, but he had no use for social etiquette and made no effort to spare others' feelings. This made it difficult to send him on diplomatic missions and, combined with his failure to ever accept a padawan, had prevented him from becoming a Jedi Master. That didn't appear to concern him, though. He preferred studying history in the Jedi Archives and on other worlds.

He was finishing up a report on the siege at Kromor when Obi-Wan came to see him. And it didn't take much convincing before he was packing a bag for the trip.

* * *

**Chapter 14**

**Disembarkment**

* * *

It was an eerie morning on Coruscant. It had rained during the night, and the sunlight was weaker for it. No one was out and about. It was as if everyone had received some psychic warning. The Jedi Master and his crew shared the grim feeling.

Obi-Wan stood on the landing pad, looking up at the Dawn Tangent. It was fine ship, with a narrowed nose and a neck that widened until it connected to the body, which fanned out in a semi-circle. The dark orange finish had faded over time, but it didn't look old.

The Tangent was perfect for their purposes; it would attract neither the envy nor pity of anyone who saw it.

Doctor Julian Landrieu buzzed past the Jedi for a seventh time, hauling a muscular imaging scanner. The young healer was either prescient or a pessimist, judging by the array of diagnostic and surgical equipment he was loading. He wasn't a medic clearly, for they take only the most primitive supplies. This was a man who was used to, and felt he required, the full range of his vocation's tools.

You can only tell so much from a handshake and friendly platitudes, but Obi-Wan sensed a well-balanced kindness and arrogance in him. Julian was a local, speaking with a gentle accent like the Jedi's, and he had the deep brown eyes of a dreamer. He struck Obi-Wan as a man for whom war held a romantic mystery, and this troubled him somewhat, but Bail's recommendation was enough to assure him of the doctor's constitution. And there was something else about him – something Julian didn't even know about himself.

Miler and Aayla walked past, laughing at some intimate joke as they brought their personal affects onboard the Tangent. Quinn followed after them, looking pained by their behavior.

Obi-Wan had no illusions of a harmonious journey. His crew was cobbled together from strangers with various agendas. Completion of the mission would require not only his valor, but generous application of his negotiating talents. His task was great, and he feared it beyond his abilities. The entire galaxy was in his hands.

"Hope you know what you're doing, Boss."

Obi-Wan glanced behind him at a smirking Landon.

"I know you Jedi are stretched pretty thin," the smuggler continued, "but this isn't exactly a dream team you've assembled."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Well, let's see here. You've got a bright-eyed hero – the last survivor of his squadron – a tentacled Jedi who's got a habit of losing mentors, the fearless doctor who thinks war is an adventure, a politician with a habit for being ornery, and…"

"And?"

Landon smiled darkly. "And a handsome drifter who'd sell you out in a second if he got the right offer."

"I don't doubt that," Obi-Wan replied casually. He watched the doctor bound down the ramp and enthusiastically accept more equipment from an assistant. "But I suspect none in this crew are here by chance. I believe it is the will of the Force that has brought us together."

Landon rolled his eyes. "I ever tell you your hocus pocus is insufferable? You Jedi spend your whole life pretending there's some magic vapor telling you to do this and that. Every time you do something wrong, you just say you're following your destiny."

His words lacked their implied rebuke. It was a statement of fact more than anything. With a serene smile, Obi-Wan adjusted the satchel on his shoulder, and said, "Our destinies, which have taken us both to dark places, are now irrevocably linked. And I am not disgusted by it."

He made his way toward the ship, leaving a frowning Landon to consider his words, and to consider his own nature and the forces that would test it.

* * *

The ship was a little clean for Landon's tastes. He didn't trust sterile places, nor immaculate people. There's a deceit in cleanliness, for one must interrupt nature to achieve it. The polished walls held his image, and even it was stripped of its grime.

But regardless of his misgivings, he adjusted quickly to the notion that this was home. He had no money to his name; he'd not any loved ones; and there was no purpose in his heart. He carried out living as a matter of habit, and he required no special place in which to do it.

Landon had no belongings to stow, save for a few essentials furnished by the Jedi. He put them away and wandered from his cabin through the heart of the ship.

He passed: the infirmary, where Julian was busy hooking up various equipment; modest crew cabins; stellar cartography, a resplendent space with view screens on the ceiling, floor, and walls to display life-like star maps or even interactive views of cities and building interiors; an engineer's work room; and finally the cockpit.

He smiled slightly upon noting a damaged control panel on one wall. Having been soothed by the flaw, Landon slid into the pilot's seat, stretching his fingers before skimming them over the console.

"How's she look?" Miler asked, leaning against the corridor wall.

Landon shrugged. "It'll fly. Least 'til Kenobi gets us killed."

"If ya end up dead, it'll be 'cause a'that mouth a'yours, not the Gen'ral."

"Maybe," Landon conceded. "But if I die, it won't be for some glory or conviction, or because I've got a case of hero worship." He turned and looked the soldier in the eye. "You remember one thing, Kid: you look out for yourself. Ain't no one else gonna do it – Jedi or not."

Landon swiveled back to the console, familiarizing himself with its layout. Miler stared for a long moment at the back of his head, some sorrowed contemplation brewing. Sometimes he wondered just what he was trying to save.

* * *

Obi-Wan was tired. His strength, while improving, had yet to return to optimal levels. He could hardly complain, of course. He was lucky to be alive, and to be up and about so soon after he'd paused at death's precipice was almost inhuman. The Force, he suspected, imposed its will upon his energies, but for what specific purpose, he did not know. Perhaps Yoda was right; perhaps it was fated that he lead this mission.

He set two long boxes, one atop the other, in the corner of the cargo hold. Each one held five lightsabers and five crystals. He'd learned his lesson during the Siege of Tattooine, when he and Kit Fisto had lost their respective weapons and been forced to fight hand to hand against a squad of Sith soldiers.

As he slid another box, this one filled with blaster rifles and assorted assault gear, to sit beside the others, he sensed Padme's approach. He squared his shoulders away from his work and cheerfully received her.

"Hello there," he said when she appeared in the doorway. "Are you all set for our vacation?"

She rewarded him with a genuine smile. "Must you be so glib about our impending doom, Master Jedi?"

"Milady, what could be more relaxing than visiting a suspected traitor on a desolate desert world?"

"Well, I suppose it can't be worse than the ten-hour procedural vote the senate's undertaking right now," Padme said, her bright eyes trailing from Obi-Wan's to the bay's various cargo. "But I suspect I might miss their dignified incompetence before long. Judging by all the armaments in here, you won't be using your negotiating skills on this mission."

"It never hurts to be prepared."

"My Obi-Wan: pragmatic as always."

There was a silence in the room at the expression of possession. Padme's lips were a tight line, until after a moment Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow and smirked to diffuse the tension.

Padme stepped to one side when she heard Aayla's footsteps from around the corner, and she gave the blue Jedi a clear line of sight to Obi-Wan. The senator ducked her head in a way that was too casual to _be_ casual. There was an unacknowledged sense among the three that the Twi'lek had interrupted something.

Aayla feigned indifference, announcing softly: "We'll be underway in just a few minutes, Master. Miler says the engines are in great shape." She smiled and, in a bad imitation of his brogue, added: "'Damndest machinery ya ever'll see.'"

The affection with which she recited it was not lost on Obi-Wan or Padme. The senator wondered at the quality of her own subterfuge; she wondered if her tone when addressing or discussing Obi-Wan carried the same undercurrent. Surely not, she decided. She was, after all, a trained diplomat.

After a moment, Padme cleared her throat and said, "I'll… make sure the last of our supplies was brought on-board."

She smiled awkwardly at Aayla, then Obi-Wan, before leaving them. When she was out of sight, Aayla looked on Obi-Wan smugly.

"What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she replied innocently.

Obi-Wan grunted grumpily, returning to his arrangement of the boxes.

* * *

Julian stood against the far wall, regarding his infirmary with a sense of accomplishment. It wasn't cushy like the medical bay in the Convocation Center, and he was limited in what tools and pharmaceuticals would fit the modest space, but it was _his_. No colleagues, no nurses, no emergency call buttons. It was him alone in the great frontier.

He fussed with the sheets on one of the patient beds, smoothing out the wrinkles. This was his undertaking when Miler arrived. The soldier looked about the room with appreciation.

"Well, how 'bout that. Ya made quick work of it."

"Just want to be prepared before we dash off into the great unknown," Julian declared enthusiastically. "You never know what's waiting in the dark. A doctor's work is eighty percent preparation."

Miler smiled slightly. "And the other twenty?"

"Kismet."

"Kismet. Right. I'll try to remember that."

Julian's eyes flicked down to Miler's collar, which was adorned with a small, gold-plated pin shaped like a rhombus. "Hmm. That's curious. Your file said you're _Lieutenant_ Crata."

Miler shifted uncomfortably. With humility, he explained, "I was promoted this morning. Something about 'honor under extreme conditions.'"

"Congratulations! You must be very proud."

"Yeah, I am," Miler replied dully.

"You don't _sound_ proud, Captain. And you should be," Julian insisted. "I heard what you did. Pulled Kenobi and Senator Amidala out of some wreckage, and later almost single-handedly got them off the planet – quite literally carrying him on your back."

Miler smiled despite himself. "Ya got a very vivid imagination, Doctor."

"Don't I know it. Keeps me warm on a lonely night." Julian paused, then added, "Not that I have many of those."

Miler believed him. A lot of women – the young ones, at least – preferred bombast over substance, and he suspected Julian didn't disappoint during his one-night courtships.

"Keep tha' imagination ready, Doctor," he said. "It's gonna be a long trip."

* * *

Quinn regarded his cabin with mild disdain. He was used to more spacious accommodations, both when he was serving aboard a star cruiser and in the Temple on Coruscant. Despite their vow of poverty, the Jedi were accustomed to living comfortably.

He sat on the edge of his bunk, examining a data tablet with biographies of his companions. He consumed and analyzed every last scrap of information. The success of the mission hinged on their personalities, on their motivations, and on how they responded under duress. He resolved to know those things before they arrived on Halm.

* * *

Landon glanced up at as Obi-Wan entered the cockpit.

"Start your pre-flight diagnostics," the Jedi said. "As soon as Captain Crata gets up here, I want this ship in the air."

"What's the hurry, Boss? Ain't that magic chair of yours ancient? Sure it'll keep 'til you find it."

"You forget that we aren't the only ones looking for it. And I assure you, the Sith don't pause for banter."

Landon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Good and evil; race against time. I got it."

Obi-Wan waited until the smuggler complied with his order, then exited the cockpit, walking down the corridor that spat out into stellar cartography. He found Padme there, a gentle smile on her face.

Prompted by his inquisitive stare, she said, "We have a last-minute addition to the crew."

"Oh?"

Padme stepped to one side to reveal R2-D2, whose shell was so polished as to create a glare. There were no loose wires or blaster scars; he looked brand new.

"R2!" Obi-Wan exclaimed with a grin. "Hello, old friend. I was afraid I'd lost you." His grin faltered briefly, and he glanced at Padme. "They didn't – "

"Wipe his memory?" she finished. "No, he's the same droid you remember."

Obi-Wan looked to R2 for confirmation, and was rewarded with a chiding whine and a spinning of his head piece. The Jedi's grin bloomed again.

"Well, I wouldn't have left without you if I'd known," Obi-Wan responded. "Last time I saw you, you were hardly in any condition to join me." At R2's disbelieving reply, he sighed and said, "I see you're going to be as ornery as ever."

Miler emerged into the room from one of the other corridors. "We're all set, Gen'ral. Wha'do ya say we get this girl in the air?"

"Must you men always form a romantic attachment to your ships?" Padme interjected.

Miler smirked, continuing toward the cockpit, throwing over his shoulder: "It's like m'father always said, Senator. Ya treat 'er like a lady, and she'll always take ya home."

As he disappeared from view, Padme glanced at Obi-Wan, who only shrugged his agreement. She shook her head. He was the most mature man she'd ever known, and yet he'd room in his machinery for masculine triviality.

Padme followed after Miler. Obi-Wan and R2 stayed behind to double-check their travel plan. With the push of a button on a small console, the room's projector came to life, bathing all four walls with a star field. He flipped a switch on another computer panel and a dotted line appeared across the middle of the room, leading to a tan-covered planet, which spun in the air before them.

The dotted line represented their hyperspace route. So far as he could tell, there were no ships traveling through it at the moment. It appeared their journey would be smooth.

Obi-Wan swiveled his head to the secondary corridor to find Julian approaching. The doctor stepped into the room slowly, eyes scanning the star field with something like wonder.

"This is incredible," the doctor marveled. "The detail is extraordinary. It's like I'm actually floating through space."

Obi-Wan touched the console again, and a read-out of the planet conditions appeared in the air.

"Well, now, that doesn't look very hospitable, does it?" Julian remarked, studying the data. "Nothing but desert and mines. Barely any cities – or even places to land."

"Places like this," Obi-Wan said, "are the kind that keep secrets. When you bury something beneath enough rock and dust, beneath enough sadness, few will ever look for it."

"Nothing can stay hidden forever."

Obi-Wan watched the harsh planet turn. He squinted his eyes, and the tan and red mixed with the black of space to create one swirling mass. "No," he said. "I suppose it can't."

* * *

Landon flipped three switches to the _on_ position. "Rocket boosters online. Everything reads normal."

"Control tower, this is DT-1," Miler called into the radio. "Request permission to depart."

After a moment, a voice called back: "Permission granted, DT-1. You're all clear. Have a safe flight."

As the ship slowly eased off the ground, Obi-Wan and Julian joined Padme and Aayla behind the pilots. They all watched their ascension through the view screen. The Tangent pressed through the clouds, and then through the stratosphere, before sliding into the black of space.

"Prep the hyperdrive," Miler said. "Another five thousand kilometers and we're in the clear."

Landon bristled at being ordered. "Sure thing, _Captain_."

Miler's affect darkened. "There's still time to turn around," he snapped. "I'd be happy to drop ya off."

"Now why I would I wanna do that? I'm honored to take orders from someone of your considerable stature."

"Then again, maybe I could just toss you out the airlock."

"Kid, you don't shut up and I'll – "

"Gentlemen," Obi-Wan interjected, "can we have a little decorum in here, please?"

With a half-hearted snarl, Landon prepared the ship for its jump to light speed. Miler angled them around to the correct course-heading. The others felt the ship jerk back slightly as the hyperdrive came to life.

"All right, we're in the clear," Miler said.

Obi-Wan stared out into the great unknown. "Then by all means, Captain…"

With a tap of the hand, the Dawn Tangent leapt forward into hyperspace.

Now it began.


	15. The Horsemen

**A/N:** Hello, all! Can you believe I got another chapter up so quickly? With my vacation over, this definitely won't be the norm, but I'm feeling energized about this story right now and will keep writing as time allows. I know exactly where I want things to go and I'm excited about getting there.

Many thanks to Gidgey, Sasha, and Furion for the reviews! I say it all the time, but thoughtful feedback makes all the energy and effort worth it. It's nice to know you're not tossing your words into a bottomless void. :)

This chapter features a big plot development and what I hope is some mystery. Hope you enjoy this installment!

* * *

**Chapter 15**

**The Horsemen**

* * *

The trip to Halm was largely uneventful.

Miler spent most of it playing sabacc with Julian. The doctor was light-hearted and considerate and distracted him from both confrontations with Landon and awkwardness with Aayla.

R2-D2 studied holograms of the ancient texts describing the Mercy Seat. He'd been tasked with deciphering the language to allow a complete translation.

Obi-Wan spent most of the trip resting. Padme kept him company; they told old stories, shared and unique. When she thought he was close to sleep, she even read to him – mostly books debating spirituality, as they both found it fascinating.

Aayla worked relentlessly to befriend Quinn, who barely tolerated it.

When they finally arrived in the Halm System, Obi-Wan joined Miler and Landon in the cockpit.

"Any Sith warships out there?" the Jedi asked.

Miler shook his head. "If they're here, they're incognito."

"Well, keep your eyes open, but set us down on the planet in one of the main cities. Let's not hide; that would only draw more attention."

"Good thinking, Boss. Why don't you put us down next to the Sith Embassy?" Landon quipped. "We can drop by with some wine, learn about the Dark Side."

"We can't spend this whole mission sneaking around," Obi-Wan said, before smiling slightly and patting him on the shoulder. "Besides, Halm's a neutral planet. I don't imagine the Sith will make trouble in the streets – not when the Empire's negotiating for the planet's annexation."

Miler shook his head. "Still don't understand why they haven't jus' bloody conquered the place like they do every other planet."

"Sidious knows his history. Every empire the galaxy's ever known has tried to conquer Halm, but none have succeeded. Its people are hearty and its deserts endless. You could spill blood for a dozen centuries and never approach victory."

"What's so special about this place that everyone wants it?" Miler asked.

"Anthracite – and lots of it. Cheapest fuel in the galaxy," Obi-Wan explained. "If Halm breaks its neutrality and sells exclusively to the Sith…"

He trailed off. Miler's mouth set in a grim line. After a silence, his steady voice announced: "We've received clearance. Beginning approach."

* * *

The Dawn Tangent set down in Metano, Halm's third-largest city. It was unique in that it wasn't propped-up by the mining industry. The surrounding area had been stripped to its bones; all the Anthracite was gone. The hills held nothing but sand and ghosts.

The crew gathered in stellar cartography to receive Obi-Wan's instructions.

Landon looked over Obi-Wan and Aayla skeptically. "Boss, I ain't one to critique people's fashion, but don't you think you better change into something a little less… Jedi?"

"We cannot hide that we are Jedi," Aayla said, "and it would be foolish of us to try. The common Sith or Halman citizen will not recognize us, even if they're familiar with Master Kenobi by reputation."

Landon smirked. "Sure. Whatever you say. You two just walk ten paces in front of me, okay?"

"I'm more worried about us running into one of your ex-business associates," Obi-Wan countered. "So why don't we all just pay attention out there?"

Padme watched the exchange passively. She was beginning to think Landon was more trouble than he was worth; whatever Obi-Wan saw in him was hidden from her. But as it wasn't her decision, she let things be.

"Gen'ral, how exac'ly are ya plannin' to find this Trask fella?" Miler asked.

"We'll start at City Hall. If Trask is here lawfully, he would have registered his archeological dig with the planetary authority."

Julian frowned. "And if he didn't?"

"One step at a time, Doctor," Obi-Wan replied, before looking at the others. "I need someone to stay with the Tangent. I don't want the locals seeing the ship empty and unguarded."

There was a silence as he awaited volunteers, but none came forth. The crew looked at one another dourly. Finally, Quinn said, "It certainly can't be me. I'm here for my historical expertise and because I'm a Jedi. Quite frankly, I think Senator Amidala is the only one without the requisite skills to venture outside the ship. She'll be safer here."

Padme scowled. "And just what 'requisite skills' am I lacking?"

"I'm not saying you aren't very good at what you do," Quinn patronized. "I'm just saying: there's liable to be things out there you can't talk to death, and that's about the only talent you possess."

Obi-Wan swallowed a rebuke, allowing Padme the dignity of her own defense.

"It's true," Padme said coolly, "that I am not a Jedi. I cannot wield a lightsaber. My experience with a blaster is, at best, limited. But I possess skills of which you seem to have a deficit: the ability to read people, and to procure their cooperation." She matched his condescending tone when she said, "I fear that, despite your Jedi training, you cannot comport yourself humbly."

Quinn's eyes were like steel. "You don't know me," he growled.

"You're right; I don't. Nor do you know me. So why don't we both keep our impressions to ourselves and get on with the mission?"

Obi-Wan sighed. They'd only just landed and already tensions were pitching high. He smiled disarmingly and suggested: "R2, why don't you keep an eye on things? I suspect I'll need both Quinn's and milady's skills to accomplish my task here."

Perceiving his master's plea, R2 beeped compliantly. Padme glanced at Obi-Wan with gratitude.

"Once we locate Trask, I suggest we divide into groups," Julian said mildly. "The seven of us might qualify as a Republic invasion force."

Obi-Wan swept a hand over his beard, considering the suggestion. He couldn't hide the fact that he was a Jedi, but he could avoid his crew looking like a band of marauders. He nodded his assent.

* * *

Vader sat cross-legged on the floor of the meditation chamber. The ancient book lay open before him.

There was far more to its pages than just the Mercy Seat. The aged text radiated power; anger and hate rose like steam from the ink.

His eyes were shut lightly. He breathed easily.

_In the dawn of your rage, you must choose three horsemen to ride beside you. Only through your combined hatred can you unlock immortality. Let the darkness flow through your body, gain its own intelligence, so that it may instruct you on the slaughter of your enemies. You must surrender to its vicious being to achieve ultimate power._

In his mind's eye, a serpent coiled around the black of his vision. It was the darkness. He was its chosen suitor. He and his horsemen would release it from its cage, draw strength from its intellect. He would unleash on this galaxy an apocalypse from which there could be no recovery.

_Whereas the Light grovels before the Soul of the Universe, the Dark controls it. The Dark wills creation where it otherwise would not be._

Vader trembled before this revelation. There was no greater power than to control creation. In learning this ability, he would become God. He would be worshipped, and his name alone would awaken terror in the hearts of his subjects. On that day, Vader would have anything he wanted – including Padme.

* * *

It's a strangeness in nature that planets can seem the same. Despite divergent evolutions, and even the absence of terraforming, trees were still trees; most oceans were salty.

This place reminded Miler of a Sith planet from his first campaign. Argo – was that the name? Or maybe Barbro. In any case, it was a sad world. Stripped to its bones, its minerals plundered, its only resource was the guile of its people. They were survivors; they made tough choices and regarded death as beneath their attention.

As he looked about at Halm's gritty natives and their sundry undertakings, Miler felt the same longing and dread he'd experienced on that other world. He glanced briefly at his companions.

Death would come to this group, as it did to all gatherings. And as his eyes fell on Aayla, the abstraction graduated into a feeling in his gut. When she looked back at him, Miler's gaze moved away.

Obi-Wan slowed to a stop when City Hall came into view. Miler followed the Jedi's eyes, waiting a moment before asking, "Somethin' wrong, Gen'ral?"

Obi-Wan shook his head slowly, scanning the horizon before his eyes fell on another building.

"The Republic Embassy?" Padme asked.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "I'm not interested in explaining our intentions to any bureaucrats, but it could create problems later if they discover us on their own."

Miler smiled slightly. "Aye. The paper pushers don' like feelin' excluded."

Padme stepped around to Obi-Wan's other side, drawing his eyes to her wry smile. "I think a visit from a Republic senator could keep them distracted for a while."

She was right. While there had been a steady stream of Sith diplomats on and off the world over the past few months, the Republic had been neglectful. Padme would be received with great enthusiasm at the embassy.

Obi-Wan nodded. "Take Miler and Aayla with you."

"Expecting trouble?" she asked.

"No. But no one goes anywhere alone until this mission is over," he said grimly. "There's a darkness looming unlike any I've known before."

Padme's gaze swept over the weather-beaten buildings and harsh landscape again. She saw nothing but what her eyes imbibed, and she wondered at a Jedi's threshold for madness – wondered how they could stand to see the dark shadows cast over everyone and everything. She was so grateful that the Force had not chosen her.

* * *

City Hall was cleaner and more modern than the rest of Halm, and judging by the construction workers milling about, this was a recent occurrence. There were still knocked-out walls in the west end waiting to be replaced.

Obi-Wan, Quinn, and Julian ascended the steps to the Local Affairs office. The stairs were paved with gold, and the railing was of intricate design: the faces of desert animals wove up, down, and around the banisters.

"A bit bombastic, isn't it?" Julian mused.

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "A gift from the Sith, no doubt."

"You'd think they might have started by meeting the basic needs of the poor."

"The ruling class always takes the spoils," Obi-Wan said. "It's the first thing they teach you in Despot School."

Julian turned to Quinn. "Is it like that where you come from? The rich people and then the rest of you?"

"Where I come from, there is no currency," the reptile said darkly. "The strong survive; the weak die."

Julian squinted and frowned. He cleared his throat nervously before replying, "Sounds charming."

Obi-Wan smirked, patting the man on the back as they reached the top of the stairs. He gestured to the left corridor. "This way, gentlemen."

* * *

The clerk was portly, but beautiful. Her round, rosy cheeks were wrinkled with deep smile lines, an accomplishment on a barren world. Her eyes sparkled with a life some don't discover.

"It's a bit unusual what you're requesting," she said cheerfully. "We have the information, of course, but it's not public record. Are you asking on behalf of the Jedi Council?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "No, this is a personal matter. Palmer Trask is… an old friend of ours."

"Well, I'm terribly sorry, sir; I'd like to help you, but I can't divulge this information without an official request from a governing body."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to reply, but stopped short when Julian slid past him. The doctor braced his hand on the desk, leaning in toward the clerk with a flirtatious smile.

"I know it's a bit unusual, darling," he said softly, "but the thing about it is: Palmer knows we're coming. He just forgot to send us the details. I hate to picture him out there on his own on this dig. Could be dangerous for him."

While Obi-Wan fought the urge to roll his eyes, the clerk smiled sympathetically, glancing away.

Julian pressed harder. "I just couldn't bear if anything happened to him, dear. And with the desert raiders out there, I'm worried for him." He glanced about, as if checking for eavesdroppers, then added softly, "And I can't imagine how the Republic would react if an archaeologist were to die just because the planetary authority refused to tell us where he was."

The woman looked down at her hands, fiddling nervously. It wouldn't look good for her office if something were to happen to the man. And as a woman of conscience, she didn't like the idea of him being out there alone.

She glanced up at the doctor. His handsome face was creased imploringly.

"Well… I guess… you are his friends after all."

"You're a dearheart," Julian said. As the clerk turned to her computer to retrieve the information, the doctor smirked cockily at Obi-Wan, who smiled despite himself.

* * *

Landon was waiting for them when they stepped outside.

"Did you get it?" he asked.

Obi-Wan handed him a data pad. "Twenty miles east of here in the Carmata Dunes. Did you find a speeder?"

"Yeah. Piece of junk, Boss, but it'll do."

The quartet marched down the steps of City Hall, drawing as little attention as they could. Quinn, receiving far more than he desired for his appearance, regarded the passersby with disdain.

Obi-Wan seemed to know what he was thinking. "I wouldn't take offense," he said. "There's a scorpion on this world that looks quite like you."

"It's a rather handsome creature," Julian added.

Quinn glared, but said nothing.

As they reached the bottom of the steps and headed west toward the speeder depot, Landon glanced at Obi-Wan. "So, what is it you're planning to say to this guy, Boss? 'I'm here; I'm Jedi; tell me your secrets'?"

"That's the general idea," Obi-Wan said.

"And if he ain't moved by that?"

"Then I guess we'll have a problem."

Landon turned to Quinn. "Are you sure this guy's your master strategist?"

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, but the reptile said nothing. They walked on in silence.

* * *

There was no pomp or grandeur about the embassy. In truth, it looked pathetic. The marble floors were cracked in places, the walls were dotted with grime, lights in the uninhabited areas were shut off to conserve power, and there was only a skeleton staff on hand. The first thing Miler thought was how vulnerable the embassy was to incursion. Two Sith with rifles and armor would be enough to make a run on it.

"Not much to look at it, is it?" Padme remarked.

"With the war going so badly," Aayla said, "I imagine resources are scarce on the outer rim worlds."

Padme glanced down. As a member of the Senate Committee on Diplomatic Relations, she was directly involved in appropriations for the embassies. She didn't remember this one specifically, but she and her colleagues had starved dozens of them of precious resources.

Miler smiled slightly. "I've seen worse, ma'am. Leas' it ain't abandoned. I had t'comb through the embassy on Dramor for survivors," he recalled distantly. "Course, I didn't find none. Nothin' creepier than an empty buildin' with all the lights flickerin'."

Padme patted his arm affectionately. "We'll be on our way when the first light flickers, Captain."

They proceeded to the front desk, where a lanky, middle-aged man received them dispassionately. He peered at them over the wire rim of his spectacles.

"Welcome to the Republic Embassy," he said lifelessly. "What is the nature of your business?"

Padme smiled politely. "I'm Senator Padme Amidala of Naboo. I'm here to see the ambassador."

There was a spark of life in the man's eyes at the reveal of her identity. "Greetings, Senator. I don't believe we were expecting you."

"Yes. It was a last-minute diversion. I wished to check on the status of our negotiations with the planetary government."

"Well," the man said, "Ambassador Mothma is very busy. I'll have to see if she's available."

Miler frowned. "Surely the ambassador can make time for a galactic senator."

A female voice from the hallway replied, "Surely I can."

All eyes fell on Mon Mothma, as she strode confidently into the lobby. The ambassador was a tall, slender woman, with piercing green eyes and auburn hair held out of her face by an ornamental headpiece. She was strength; she was compassion; she was like Padme in many ways.

"Mon Mothma," Padme said warmly, "it has been far too long."

"At least two years by my count."

"I didn't realize you'd been assigned here. Last I heard, you were an advisor in the chancellor's office."

Mothma smiled ironically. "There were many who didn't care for my counsel, or the manner in which I provided it. They thought it was safer to hide me in the outer rim, where my tongue could not harm them." There was a fleeting moment of regret or self-pity, but she cast it aside quickly, and said, "I don't believe I know your associates."

Padme gestured to each of them. "This is Captain Miler Crata, and Jedi Knight Aayla Secura."

Mothma shook each of their hands firmly, then smiled at Padme. "Come. We will discuss what has brought you here."

She began back down the hallway, her new companions trailing after her.

* * *

_The Four Horsemen will cause great suffering. At the altar of your strength, masses will beg and tremble. You will be brothers in the destruction of all which opposes you._

Vader's eyes slipped open slowly. Three distinct Force signatures registered behind him. He needn't see the men to know who they were.

Beside Darth Malice, the disfigured torturer Sidious held in high regard, stood Darth Demic and Darth Wrath.

Demic was a handsome man. Piercing blue eyes anchored a long face that curved pleasingly into a clefted chin. His head was shaved down to the stubble and had only faint wrinkles. He could have appeared charming if not for the perpetual snarl on his lips. And at six feet and three inches, with broad, strong shoulders, he had the means to carry out his intentions.

Wrath, a Kel Dorian man, stood in stark contrast. His nose and mouth were not separate features, as a human's are; both were part of a gaping hole through which he both smelled and breathed. There were no teeth in the chasm, but rather drooping strands of flesh and a hard palette that could not be seen from the outside. Silver irises dotted his beady black eyes. His ridged skull included small masses that terminated in black tusks.

The atmosphere on Wrath's home world was far different than most planets. Oxygen and carbon dioxide were fatal to Kel Dorians. To accommodate his species' special needs, Wrath wore a black breath mask over his nose, mouth, and eyes. When he spoke, which wasn't often, his voice was harshly modulated.

Demic took a step forward and spoke on their behalves. "You asked to see us, my Lord."

Vader did not turn to look at them, maintaining his meditation pose.

_Learn from the mistakes of the Wise One, who achieved immortality but failed in his quest to dominate all. Whatever your misgivings, obey the dark intelligence, or you will find your power fleeting._

"What have you been told about your assignment?" he asked.

"That we are to find an ancient artifact capable of destroying our enemies," Demic said. "And that we are to find it before the Jedi."

Vader did not reply for a time. With great care, he skimmed the surface of the three Sith's minds, using techniques taught to him by Sidious to avoid detection. What he saw pleased him greatly.

In Demic's mind, cords of hate, anger, and fear were stretched taut around a memory from childhood, trapping it in his soul so that there could no healing. Demic had a devious mind and a devious heart, but also a sense of loyalty, so that his evil was not applied to those who shared its cause.

Wrath was a blunter instrument. He did not lack intellect, but had little interest in its exercise. His mind was a narrow corridor; he threw open doors in desperate search of enemies, and each empty room made his hunger more acute. Whereas most sentient beings, even many Sith, found their peace in the serene, Wrath's peace came from the smell of burning flesh.

Malice was still a mystery. But while Vader was prone to distrust fallen Jedi, Malice had proven his passion in the torture of inferiors. His mind was a temple of dark thoughts, and its construction elegant and simple, patterned on the one great truth: the strong are born to dominate the weak.

"The Mercy Seat is a means to power," Vader said, "and I seek it for that reason. But there are other avenues to power. There is a well of darkness from which to draw unlimited strength."

There was a silence, before Demic remarked carefully, "Then there is more to our mandate than what was described."

"The book is much more than the key to one weapon," Vader said, his voice low and inviting. "It is a gateway to areas even a Sith may deem to be… unnatural."

Malice glanced at the others, but they revealed nothing.

"You believe you can unlock the book's secrets?" he asked.

Vader grinned, rising to his feet, but still he did not look at them. "Command of this alchemy requires four strong in the Dark Side. But I believe that, together, we can retrieve a power as ancient as time itself. A power so great that we will be looked upon as gods."

Wrath felt his loins stir at the promise of Vader's words, and yet they rang false. "Power is not shared among Sith."

"_Gods _do not answer to the Sith!" Vader growled. "From this day forward, we are not Sith lords. We are the Four Horsemen of Darkness." His voice rose, as the notion came to life in him. "We will be immortal. I do not mean that our essence will survive when we die; I mean that we will occupy these bodies for eternity. We will reign over this galaxy with an iron hand. Kings and peasants both will worship us. And when we've brought order to and wrought enough suffering on our subjects, we will leave this galaxy and dominate others, so that our empire extends across the universe."

"And what of Lord Sidious?" Demic asked. "And Count Dooku?"

The thinly-focused ceiling lights gave the illusion that Vader was burning. "This destiny is not for them," he said. "When they looked upon the book, the symbols entered their eyes through the dull fog of ignorance. They are not the chosen ones."

Malice snarled. "You speak in riddles!"

"There are no riddles," Vader said patiently. "Only answers, and the promise."

"The promise of what?" Wrath demanded.

A slow grin spread across Vader's face. The warmth of a dark memory filled the chambers of his mind.

Perhaps, the same way some people are basically good, there are others born evil. Could it be that nurture is illusion, and that evil simply cannot be manifested until a boy has come of age? There was no sign of struggle in Vader between what he was and what others wished for him. These are terrifying thoughts, whatever you believe.

"Sidious summoned our greatest thinkers – historians, linguists, mathematicians – to decipher the book's text," Vader said. "But none succeeded."

Malice probed Vader's mind, but found it blank. Not even Sidious possessed such talent for illusion. He watched the man carefully.

"When all was still, and our leaders slept," Vader said, "I retired to my chambers to study the book. I stared at the pages, willing clarity where there was none. And after many hours passed, I slipped into a trance." There was a far-off look in his eyes. They held something like reverence. "I lay may gaze ahead of me into a cold red miasma. And there in the vapor stood a dark, gnarling beast. He stared into my eyes and whispered, 'You will read the words, my son. Your mind will understand them. The ancient power will be revealed, for this must be your destiny…'"

Vader turned to face them. His eyes burned yellow; his growl came from hell. "He said, '_**You**_**,** Anakin, are the beast – _and it is time that you are __**fed**__!_'"

The ceiling lights bathed his wicked face in flames.

* * *

There was only endless desert, interrupted by caves and mine entrances, in every direction. Landon piloted the speeder capably through the dunes. Along the way, they saw the remnants of old mining camps – leftover tents – but there wasn't a soul to be found for miles.

It reminded Obi-Wan of his fateful days on Tattooine, when he and Qui-Gon had wandered the desert in pursuit of Darth Maul. They didn't find him, but upon reaching Mos Espa discovered an extraordinary child who would change the course of history. That was a dark day for the Republic.

Landon eased the speeder to a stop as they came upon the dig site. Four sand-beaten tents formed a half-circle, with tools, rocks, and crates scattered around them. There was no movement or sound, but Obi-Wan could sense they weren't alone.

The four men climbed out of their vehicle. Obi-Wan and Quinn unclipped their lightsabers, glancing about uneasily. Landon frowned, confused, but drew his blaster.

After a few moments, the smuggler shook his head. "Boss, I don't know what you think you – "

Two Sith leapt out from behind the dune, lightsabers igniting as they flipped forward and struck at the Jedi from above. Obi-Wan's and Quinn's blades came to life and they blocked the opening blows, taking a few steps back to establish defensive postures.

The black-cloaked men were skilled, but outclassed. Obi-Wan blocked and parried, blocked and parried, and then – when the Sith missed on a long jab – spun around back of him and beheaded him from behind.

The other Sith took a wild swing at Quinn, who ducked and impaled him in the stomach. As the Sith reeled back, Quinn slashed him deep across the chest and watched him drop lifelessly into the sand.

The Jedi switched off their lightsabers.

Julian looked grimly at the carnage. He was somewhat desensitized to it, having witnessed far worse during his time in the war zone, but no breadth of experience can entirely numb you. He marveled at Obi-Wan's placidity.

"Looks like we've got our answer about Trask," Landon said, gesturing to the tents with his blaster. "I don't think your ex-Jedi's in a friendly mood."

"I'd wager they were here to spy on him, not protect him," Obi-Wan said.

"If you believe that, I've got some real estate on Dagobah to sell you…"

"Let's just see what the man has to say, shall we?"

Obi-Wan led them toward the tents, peering in each one for any sign of Palmer. The first three flapped in the wind, empty but for supplies.

As they approached the fourth tent, Palmer Trask stepped into the sunlight. He raked a hand through his thinning hair, slick with sweat, and he received the men with an enigmatic smile.

The hairs stood up on Landon's neck. There was an eeriness, a deviousness, about the man that he couldn't place. It went far beyond the feeling you get about a liar or about someone with a hidden agenda; this was a man who, to Landon, seemed capable of absolutely anything.

Obi-Wan regarded him passively. "Hello there."

"Welcome," Palmer returned in a cold, throaty brogue. "What brings you gentlemen to my home?"

"Your home?" Julian asked. "You actually… live here?"

A low, eerie chuckle escaped the archaeologist, his mustache following the slight curve of his mouth. "In a manner of speaking. You see, I prefer somewhere wet, somewhere with trees and brush, where you can disappear. The kind of place a snake can bite you before you even see it's there." He smiled dimly. "But home's a feeling, not a place. Isn't that what they say? I feel things wherever I go."

"And how do you feel about the Sith?" Obi-Wan asked, glancing meaningfully behind him at the corpses of his foes.

Palmer followed his eyes, looking nonchalantly at their bodies before meeting his gaze. "Passionate people. Cruel intentions."

"And what are your intentions, Palmer Trask?"

"Why, I seek knowledge, of course."

Obi-Wan searched his dull gray eyes, but found no sign of life. He skimmed the surface of the man's mind, but his entry was refused.

Palmer chuckled insidiously, wagging a finger at him. "Tsk tsk tsk. That wasn't very polite." The man was enjoying this. "You see, I'm like a window: too hard to break, too dark to look into. Those tricks don't work on me."

Obi-Wan scrutinized his face for some physical clue, but still nothing was revealed. Palmer Trask was cold, calculating, and resistant to the Force.

Landon sighed impatiently. "Look, bozo: I'm not in the mood for riddles. So let's cut to the chase."

Palmer smiled lazily. He raised a long hand to trace the outline of his mustache, regarding Landon as a callous child might an insect. "Let's."

"Has anyone been here recently?" Obi-Wan asked. "Someone looking for an ancient artifact… someone asking about the Architects?"

For the first time, the blast doors lifted from Palmer's eyes. He studied Obi-Wan with the same ferocity with which he analyzed ancient ruins and guarded his own life. There was something almost preternatural about Palmer's gaze, like it was tunneling through space and time to look at a thing long forgotten.

After a pregnant pause, he said: "You must be Obi-Wan Kenobi."


	16. Parallel Force

**A/N:** Greetings! I'm so glad to have had time to return to this story, which holds a special place in my heart. Thanks so much to everyone who's taken the time to review; it's truly appreciated.

I hope you enjoy this latest installment, and as always, I'd be grateful if you took the time to leave some feedback_—_praise, complaints, questions, theories. I love hearing from people.

There's a healthy dose of exposition in this chapter, but hopefully it's interesting. And it sets the stage for what's to come.

Here we go!

* * *

**Chapter 16**

**Parallel Force  
**

* * *

_Qui-Gon held up his hand, stopping his padawan in mid-stride. Obi-Wan glanced about with a creased brow._

"_Master?"_

_With binocular precision, Qui-Gon's eyes peered into the crowd. There was a power nearby—raw and unruly. He had no sense of its origins, or its alignment, but it pulsed in his chest like the thrum of machinery._

"_Do you not sense it?" he asked._

_Obi-Wan shut his eyes, reaching into the mass of slavers and scoundrels wandering Mos Espa. It was faint at first. Its presence in the Unifying Force was weak compared to the Living Force, but the padawan finally found it._

"_Yes. I feel it." His brow furrowed deeper. "But it's not Darth Maul. Something more powerful, but… far less disciplined."_

"_Perhaps one untrained in the ways of the Force."_

"_If that's true, we must find them," Obi-Wan said gravely. "There is a darkness about this aura."_

_Qui-Gon glowered. "I sense only innocence."_

"_You sense what you _wish_."_

_The master's eyes blackened like an ever-expanded shadow. It was not uncommon for Obi-Wan to forget his place. His confidence, forged in war, far exceeded his knowledge—and the problem grew more acute as Obi-Wan neared his twentieth birthday._

"_You have much to learn of the Living Force," Qui-Gon said. "You would do well to trust my judgment."_

_Obi-Wan was neither meek, nor fiery. He said passively, "Perhaps we should focus—"_

"_Help! Help! Help!"_

_The Jedi whirled around at the scream of a frightened child. They sprang forth, fighting through the crowd toward the desperate voice. No bystanders acknowledged it—at least not with their eyes._

_Obi-Wan shoved aside a drunken Rodian, revealing a blonde-haired boy cowering on the ground, his bowl-cut hair framing a cherub face. He raised his hands to shield himself._

_A tall, grizzled man in faded black body armor loomed over the boy, aiming a blaster between his eyes. The man's hands didn't shake; he was in his right mind._

_Qui-Gon's lightsaber flashed on and cut off the blaster barrell—nearly taking a limb from a passerby. The act barely registered with the black-armored man before Obi-Wan delivered a right cross that knocked him off his feet._

_The armored man blinked, tasting blood at the corner of his mouth. His head bobbed as he regard his attackers. When he saw Qui-Gon' s face cast in green light, the man struggled to his feet and disappeared into the night._

_The crowd, though it gave no sign of recognition, fanned out around the Jedi and the boy so that the three had air._

_Qui-Gon clipped the lightsaber to his belt. He ignored Obi-Wan and looked down at the boy._

_Covered in grime, with round full cheeks that concealed his malnutrition, the boy had a look of wild self-reliance that only an orphan could achieve. The danger gone, he lowered his hands and met Qui-Gon's gaze—holding it without any trepidation._

_Though we profess a wider circle, there are very few people you believe are truly special. You can count them on a hand, or in your in mind. Qui-Gon felt a new purpose rising in him._

"_Hello," he said warmly, bending down to offer a hand. "My name is Qui-Gon Jinn. I'm a Jedi Master."_

_Obi-Wan glanced between them. The boy looked like Qui-Gon grown backwards to the final stage of innocence. He watched the boy reach out and take his Master's hand, and watched his Master squeeze it._

_Obi-Wan knew he wasn't a padawan anymore._

"How do you know my name?" Obi-Wan demanded.

"The Force has a way of filling in the blanks," Palmer said, an enigmatic smile forming. "But it doesn't know everything. So why don't you help me out—what brings you to the desert?"

Obi-Wan despaired at how he slithered from word to word. This wasn't the man who Windu had described. "I'm looking for an artifact," he said. "A book."

Palmer made a show of thinking, then nodded with a raised finger. "You know, come to think of it, I did have one of those. But I'm afraid I gave it away."

"To the Sith?"

"What if I did?"

"Then you're a _traitor_," Quinn gnarled.

"A traitor to what?" Palmer shot back. "I don't wear your robes, Master Jedi. Betrayal requires bonds that I severed long ago."

The old man's voice held the impatient conviction that he was better than the Order for having chosen another path, as if selfdom is virtuous regardless of its outcome.

"Surely your disillusionment with the Jedi could not blind you to the Sith's evil," Obi-Wan said.

"You think I care about your little war, one way or the other?"

"You should!" Julian growled. "The entire galaxy is at stake!"

Palmer shook his head mildly. "Spoken like a man who doesn't know his history," he said, looking at Obi-Wan. "You see, I know where we've been. I've read the books; I've studied the ruins."

He smeared some dust between his fingers. "Five thousand years ago: the Great Hyperspace War. The Sith struck out with evil intent, but they were driven back and killed." He wiped away the dust. "When Exar Kun slaughtered everything that moved, the Jedi Council thought they were living in the End Times."

"This is different," Obi-Wan said. "The Mercy Seat is – "

"An ancient weapon of unimaginable power. Don't you think that's what they said when Revan found the Star Forge?"

"Is there a point in our future?" Landon quipped.

Palmer smiled coldly. "Evil often wins, but it seldom conquers. Even after five thousand years." He looked at Obi-Wan. "So, yeah, my man: when a band of Sith Lords rolls up and asks, 'What's it gonna be—your life or this book?' I don't carry the galaxy on my back."

Quinn scowled. "You're a coward."

Palmer never seemed to blink, like he had brille instead of eyelids. "It's more shameful," he said easily, "to deny fear than it is to run from danger."

There was nothing to hold onto. Every word was in shadow. Obi-Wan stepped toward him, and with diminished patience said: "What else did you give them? Did you translate the book? Show them anything else?"

Palmer seemed to allow Obi-Wan a moment to study him. Then he smiled slightly, twisting around and crouching beside a crate. His gray jacket bunched on one side to reveal an old lightsaber.

When he turned back, he was holding a folded parchment.

"There's something I didn't show them," he said. "Something special. Something only meant for Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Obi-Wan was still. His face did not change. He glanced at the parchment, then at Julian. The doctor frowned and Obi-Wan didn't.

He looked back at Palmer.

"Show me."

* * *

"I'm afraid the negotiations have stalled," Mon Mothma said, hands folded on the desk in front of her. "The Sith keep funneling millions of credits of aid into the planetary government, while we offer nothing."

Padme smiled sympathetically. "I wish there was more we could do, but with the way the war's going, we have to focus our resources elsewhere."

"I understand. And truth be told, there's not much to do at this point. It won't be long now before the planet's annexed by the Sith."

"It's that dire?"

"The Sith have expanded their embassy by five square miles. They say it's to accommodate additional diplomats, but we've seen the transports—and the soldiers."

Miler glowered. "And we're just letting it happen? They'll control all the fuel in the sector. The entire outer rim will fall."

Mothma leaned back in her chair. Her worthless mandate was a weight around her shoulders.

"If there was something I could do," she said, "believe me that I would."

A rush of pity, unwanted by its target, filled Padme. There's no greater pain than the realization you aren't useful.

"There's still a way to win this war," Aayla reminded them, and she did her best to appear reassuring. "It's why we've come here, Ambassador."

Mothma sat up a little straighter. Her eyes were a little more open.

They didn't tell her the whole truth, but they told her enough.

* * *

Vader marched down the hallway toward the embassy command center. He had preparations to make. There were key generals whose support he required to complete his coup without damaging the Sith's infrastructure.

He didn't _need_ their support, of course. But a long internal struggle would allow the Republic to regroup and delay Vader's plans. And he was not, by any standard, patient.

"Lord Vader!"

He swiveled back to find a low-ranking officer jogging toward him. The young man caught up breathlessly, pausing for a greedy gulp of air before reporting: "I have word from our agent in the Republic embassy."

There was a barely-restrained excitement about his person.

"Senator Padme Amidala signed the visitor log forty-five minutes ago. She and a small contingent are meeting with Ambassador Mothma."

Vader's back straightened. In his mind's eye, he saw Padme seated opposite the bureaucrat, looking too regal for her surroundings.

Despite Halm's importance, the Republic wouldn't send a senator to a remote outpost to negotiate a treaty. There was only one reason they would risk Padme's safety.

She was here to find Palmer and gain access to the dig site. And she would get what she wanted, as she always did. Soon, Republic researchers would claw at Halm's innards until they uncovered the secrets of the Architects.

Vader's rage, which sometimes receded but never disappeared, began to rise. While he believed he and his Horsemen could defeat whatever power the Mercy Seat possessed, he need never find out if he acted swiftly. He could crush right now the Jedi's last hope.

"Tell Commander Argyle to prepare his forces for immediate deployment."

"Which squadrons, my lord?"

Vader glanced out the near window at the wisps of sand blowing across the courtyard, and the town that lay beyond.

"All of them."

* * *

Palmer led them through the abandoned mine. They had no light but the thin beam from his palm beacon.

It was cold down here. The stench of death was strong. Countless miners had perished in these corridors.

When they were two miles deep, Obi-Wan asked skeptically: "How much further?"

Palmer made a show of examining his map. "Not far. There's a fork up ahead; we'll follow it right."

"How do we know you're not leading us into a trap?" Landon asked.

Palmer let out a low, breathy sound that may have been a laugh. No one could see his face. He angled the light so as to remain in shadow. "Trust me," he said.

Obi-Wan reached out through the Force in search of intelligence, but perceived no living beings. However, the Dark Side was deceptive, and this cavern had been touched by it.

"The air's getting stale," Julian remarked.

"That means we're close," Palmer assured him, before glancing at Obi-Wan. "I would've thought you could sense it by now, but you don't feel a thing, do you?" The young Jedi shook his head. "No matter. We'll be there soon enough."

* * *

Palmer had a sinewy strength that sometimes surprised people. With a soft grunt, he pulled back a jagged boulder and rolled it to one side, revealing the crawlspace leading into the chamber.

He entered first, then Obi-Wan and the others. They'd have been in total darkness but for Palmer's beacon, which he set on the ground. The rest of the group stumbled a little before finding their footing.

Before its recent rediscovery, the chamber had been vacuum-sealed for myriad millennia. There was enough air to breathe now, but it tasted foul. Julian wrinkled his nose.

"Someone wanna turn the lights on?" Landon quipped.

With a soft hiss, Palmer's lightsaber ignited. The purple edge lit his eerie smile.

He walked to the near wall. There was a deep groove in the rock face that circled the whole chamber, and it was filled with a kind of cloth. Palmer touched the cloth with the tip of his lightsaber.

Almost instantly, the cloth began to burn, a low flame spreading in both directions until it made a full ring around the chamber. There was enough fire and light now to make out everything. The ceiling was transformed into a map of the galaxy, and the other five walls told a story in writing and pictograms.

Julian smiled with boyish enthusiasm. The colors had faded, but that made it no less spectacular. He swept his eyes across the chamber, turning his body in a full circle.

"This is unbelievable," he marveled. "I've neither seen anything like it."

Obi-Wan picked up Palmer's beacon, using it for extra light as he scanned the rock face. He took a few steps so that he was at Quinn's side, and asked: "What do you make of it?"

"Just like the book. A little bit of Rakatan, a few other dead languages. The pictograms are consistent with Ancient Halmese, so at least some of this was done by the natives' ancestors."

Obi-Wan looked at Palmer. "And you? Can you read all this?"

The archaeologist chuckled beneath his breath. It was a dark, creepy sound. "That all you notice? Pictures and words?" He squinted his eyes and gestured around him. "You don't hear the sound—the echo of people?"

Julian frowned. "Are you talking about ghosts?"

"There's no such thing," Palmer said. "Not like you think. Past and present—future—they aren't serparate things. People invented time just to keep from hearing voices."

Obi-Wan tucked down the ends of his beard before shining the beacon on a new area of the wall. There was an image of two priests standing before an altar.

Julian cleared his throat, and said politely to Palmer: "For those of us who aren't…" He paused helplessly. "… in touch with the spirit world, why don't you just start there?" He gestured to the pictogram.

There was something about the doctor that reminded Palmer of his mother. That wasn't good or bad. It's just something you notice.

Palmer took a few steps to the middle of the chamber. He glanced all around, as if to refamiliarize himself, then began in an even voice.

"You go far enough forward and all of history is accused of being myth. If it wasn't written down in a way we're comfortable with, then maybe it didn't happen," he mused. "But I can tell you that the Architects were very real. They were the first true sentients in the galaxy. And five million years ago, they took their first flight to space."

Obi-Wan moved the beacon to a crude, disc-shaped craft.

"They wanted to explore—make contact," Palmer said. "But there was no one out there—at least no one worth talking to. Every race they encountered was in a primitive state. And so they were the first to ask the question: what's the point? Why are we here?"

"Asking myself that right now," Landon mumbled.

"Eventually they stopped wondering at their origin, and took creation upon themselves. They built cities covering planets; they made the hyperspace routes that we all use to this day. Every vestige of civilization is the result of their ingenuity."

Obi-Wan shifted the light to another area. Beneath some writing he couldn't decipher, there were drawings of many species—Iridonians, Killiks, Columi, Humans—crawling out of swamps toward a humanoid figure holding out shackles.

"But it wasn't enough to build _things_. Power is meaningless when there's no one to hold it over. So they went back to those other planets. And they left pieces of themselves—a foundation for intelligence."

Julian squinted at the drawing, and his brain tumbled inelegantly toward an answer he didn't like. "Are you saying that we—all of us, the whole galaxy—are an experiment? We didn't develop naturally?"

Palmer smiled devilishly. "You say that like it's a bad thing, Doctor. Aren't you glad to know your origin? All our ancestors came out of the same swamp."

"Out of the swamp—and into slavery," Quinn said.

Everyone's eyes fell on the humanoid holding shackles.

"Expansion requires sacrifice. And if you're smart enough and strong enough, the sacrifice is someone else's."

Obi-Wan dragged the light along a series of images depicting slave labor and city-building. "Their empire—how far did it reach?"

"It was limitless. The core worlds, the outer rim—even parts of the unknown regions. Wherever there was life, the Architects were known."

On one of the other walls, a brilliant limestone temple, surrounded by men in white and black cloaks, glittered under a sky with three suns. The men held long brown staffs punctuated at the top by glowing spheres. Could these have been the progenitor to the lightsaber?

"They knew the ways of the Force," Obi-Wan said.

"Some. Use of the Force was restricted to priests. Commoners and slaves were punished for its exercise."

Julian scowled. "These Architects sound pretty bloody backward. All that technology—all that influence—and not an ounce of conscience."

"Conscience is in the eye of the beholder," Palmer said. "You spray your house for insects, you call it fumigation. To the insects? It's a holocaust."

"That's a damn fine rationalization, but that's _all_ it is."

Obi-Wan smiled softly and patted the doctor's shoulder. "Point taken." He looked at Palmer. "Their robes… black and white…"

"Disagreements developed. The 'Levolents' were the dominant priests for over a hundred thousand years. They used the Dark Side to drive the empire's expansion. Eventually, there was nothing else to conquer and the Levolents turned their attention to other realms—to controlling the incorporeal. That's when a new group emerged. They called themselves the 'Mercians.'"

In the next frame after the temple drawing, a pictogram showed two armies, one clad in black and the other white, facing each other on a grassy plain.

"A civil war," Obi-Wan surmised.

"The Mercians believed it was the Architects' duty to follow the will of the Force—the Light Side. They opposed imperialism, demanded freedom for the slaves. And eventually they won the Prime Minister to their argument." Palmer smiled, amused by it all. "The empire fell into chaos. Most of the planets stood with the Levolents. The war seemed hopeless for the Mercians, until the slaves rose up and evened the odds."

Julian's eyes raked over the war's depictions. His face narrowed and wore down to the sharpest depressions. "Bloody butchers," he murmured. "The whole lot of them."

Obi-Wan studied the wall closely, merging it in his mind's eye with Palmer's words to create the illusion of experience.

"Before," he said slowly, putting something together. "You mentioned 'other realms'—controlling the incorporeal. What did you mean by that?"

"The Levolents were masters of the Dark Side. And there was one man in particular, one whose name wasn't recorded, as if even in life he was a spirit not to summon—one Levolent who knew secrets we can't imagine."

"What secrets?" Obi-Wan demanded.

Palmer gave a breathy laugh. He was so cold, so deliberate and passionless. "_The_ secrets. He got behind the curtain—saw the workings of existence. He took up creation and ending like an author's imagination."

Obi-Wan glanced down. He looked to one side, then lifted his chin.

"The Force. He became—not _one_ with it, but parallel," Obi-Wan said, mouth opening and closing while his brain caught up. "He influenced the midichlorians to—to what? Create life? Steal it?"

"That's a start."

"What happened then? A coup? He took over the Empire?"

"Don't think so small," Palmer chided. "Why would a man sit down to fish if he had the power to drain the pond?"

He watched with interest the unfocused quality of Obi-Wan's eyes. There was such depth in the man. For most people, the brain does the lifting; for others, it's the heart. But Obi-Wan's activity was centered in the soul. Every thought, every feeling, was pumped out of it like well water.

"That's what you meant by incoporeal," Obi-Wan said, the idea taking shape. "The Levolents wanted to transcend their bodies. And this one—the Nameless One—he actually did it. He became timeless. He became a focal point of beginnings and endings, like the Force."

Palmer nodded approvingly.

"Someone wanna tell me what the hell all this has to do with a magic chair?" Landon groused.

Obi-Wan shined the light on a drawing of a white-robed man meditating—surrounded by smoky shapes that looked like unformed humans.

"The Mercians worshiped the Force," Palmer said. "They could accept the Dark Side; they could accept that justice, while constant, sometimes moves backwards. But they would never accept something that existed outside the Force."

"So they created the Mercy Seat," Quinn suggested, "as a means to oppose the Nameless One."

Julian furrowed his brow. "Okay—" He paused to shake his head. "That makes sense on… some level," he said hesitantly, "but how—what's its function? What does the Mercy Seat _do_?"

Obi-Wan looked at Palmer expectantly.

But the archaeologist only smiled. "When you know that, you'll know everything."

Julian sighed. His eyes tracked the beacon light as it glided up the near wall to the ceiling, which—filled with drawings of star systems—acted as a primitive planetarium.

"What's all of this?" the doctor asked.

"The Mercy Seat was constructed on a planet said to be a 'nexus' of the Force—a point of convergence," Palmer said. "It was a planet deep in the Unknown Regions, and almost impossible to get to. But a small group of Mercians managed to create a narrow hyperspace route through all the asteroids and debris."

Palmer gestured to another planet back in known space.

"When they returned home, they told no one what they'd done. There were rumors, of course. But those who knew the Mercy Seat's location took it to their graves. The hyperspace coordinates were written down only once: on a stone tablet hidden away in a Mercian sanctuary."

"What happened to it?" Quinn asked.

"During the war, the sanctuary came under siege and the Levolents found the tablet. There was a struggle, and the tablet cracked in two. The Levolents took one piece, while the Mercians escaped with the other."

Palmer gestured to a part of the ceiling too badly corroded to make anything out. "I can't tell you where the first piece ended up. The writing there—you can see it's damaged."

"What about the other piece?" Obi-Wan asked.

"The Mercians' piece ended up on an outer rim world. Today, we call the planet Mareth."

"Then that's where we start."

Julian blanched. "Mareth?" He narrowed and his eyes and repeated for emphasis: "_Mareth_? You can't be serious about going there—it's under quarantine."

"What are you talking about?" Landon demanded. "What quarantine?"

"Three years ago, there was a disease—a plague. It consumed the entire planet," Julian said. "The Republic set up an orbital defense system, so that any ships leaving are destroyed—and any incoming ships are blocked by a force field."

Obi-Wan took a long look at the drawing before switching off the beacon. He regarded the men calmly.

"We'll have to find a way through," he said. "There's no other choice."

"There's _always_ a choice," Landon balked.

"I will not allow this galaxy to fall to the Sith," Obi-Wan said, raking a stern gaze over them. "We all know the stakes. We _must _find the Mercy Seat—and the road starts at Mareth."

He wasn't only _the Negotiator_ for his ability to foster truces. Everyone was silent.

Landon scowled and glanced off.

"Do the Sith know about the tablet?" Obi-Wan asked Palmer.

"Not yet," the older man said. "But it's only a matter of time until they find this. They'll figure it out."

Obi-Wan scanned the rock for weak points. "What would it take to destroy this chamber?"

"Not much. Three—maybe four proton charges."

After a moment's pause, and with an uneasy sigh, Landon reached into his pouch and produced a stout metal cylinder. It was immediately recognized as a permacrete detonator. He held it out for the others' inspection. "Will this do?"

Palmer smiled slowly, laughing beneath his breath.

* * *

A thousand bodies blocked the horizon.

The Four Horseman fanned out ahead of the infantry, which marched in their wake in perfect synchronicity. The soldiers' rifles were drawn and rested in firm hands parallel their bodies. The glare from the fading sun washed out their faces. Their anonymity struck fear.

The locals peered cautiously out windows and from alleys, and a brave few stood in the open. There was complete stillness over everything. For years, Halm's people had enjoyed the comfort of perpetual negotiation; they'd worn as a cloth the sense of their own importance. That was all gone now.

Vader imbibed their fear, feeling a distinctly sexual pleasure. Perhaps in his psyche, some wires had gotten crossed, or perhaps intimacy is no more than belief in your own power. Whatever its source, he would kill to maintain it.

The Republic embassy waited in the distance.

* * *

Mothma's eyes snapped to the door as it was flung open; the lanky man burst in with wild eyes. His glasses were slanted down on one side. He shook with energy.

"Ambassador!"

Mothma felt a dread growing. "What is it?"

"Outside! Something – " He shook his head as if to clear it. "Something's happening."

With a quick glance at the others, the Ambassador rose to follow him. Padme, Miler, and Aayla weren't far behind.

They jogged down a long hallway, which spat them into the lobby.

They looked out through the glass panels into a sea of black and gray. The faces were indistinct, but Aayla needed not see them to know Vader was at the helm. Even Padme, untethered from the Force, seemed to know his identity. They stood transfixed; the entire war came flashing before their eyes.

Miler circled around to block their lines of sight.

"We have t'go!" he said quickly, directing it at Mothma. "Is there another way out? An evacuation route?"

She blinked a few times, like she were learning his language, before nodding dumbly. "Y-yes. Yes. There's an underground exit."

"Where?"

"There's a false floor panel in the staff quarters," the lanky man said. "It'll take us down through a tunnel to a landing pad."

"What about the others?" Padme asked.

"We can't help 'em if we're _dead_," Miler snapped. He grabbed the lanky man roughly and spun him toward the hallway, shoving him ahead. "_Go_!"

With one last glance at Vader's army, a hundred feet from the gate, the lanky man led the group away. Half-running, half-walking, they fell into an awkward rhythm.

Padme's thoughts were with Obi-Wan. For all she knew, he lay dead in the desert. But now wasn't the time. She shook off the reverie and hustled forward.

"This way!" The lanky man rounded a corner.

Miler, about to follow, stopped abruptly as the lanky man was thrown from out of sight back into view. Miler moved to help him, then froze as three men bearing rifles stepped around the corner.

The men wore embassy uniforms. They gestured with their guns for Miler to step back. After a moment's hesitation, he obliged. The lanky man writhed on the floor, holding his chin where the heel of a blaster struck it.

A fiery veil fell over Mothma. This was her security team.

"Hello, Ambassador," the lead man said, gray-blue eyes appraising her companions. "I'm afraid I can't let you leave."

Aayla glanced at Miler, as her hand edged toward her lightsaber. The soldier held her eyes, before shaking his head slightly. Aayla let her hand drop.

* * *

With the flick of a wrist, Vader forced open the huge iron gates leading to the embassy. The gates snapped to the sides, testing the hinges with a loud whine before rocking to a stop.

Demic led a contingent of men to secure the perimeter, while Wrath and Malice and two dozen soldiers trailedup the steps. Vader's cape waved as a hot wind blew through, scattering dust over the three Sith.

Vader could feel his men's anticipation; they had a childlike impatience to carry out violence. Of his three Horsemen, Demic was the thinker. The others required attention.

"They're to be taken alive until I say otherwise," Vader decreed, wiping Padme from his mind as Wrath and Malice nodded. "Be on your guard. I sense Jedi within."

At the top of the steps, Vader thrust his hand forward. With a single thought, he shattered the glass doors leading in. And then stepping through the opening, his Horsemen behind him, Vader came face to face with the Republic contingent.

Mon Mothma, held at gunpoint by her guards, received him defiantly—back rigid, face placid. But this only drew a wicked smile. Vader had always—in his own mind, at least—appreciated strong women.

Miler and Aayla withheld nothing in their postures; they were tightly coiled, barely restrained. Vader met their eyes casually, a smirk forming.

It fell, like it were struck from his face, when Padme stepped into view. In the ugly sunlight from outside, her skin, a porcelain color, seemed to sparkle, and her chocolate eyes were framed perfectly by the curled hair falling on either side of her. Her glossy lips seemed to float through the air.

His eyes were yellow, then blue, then yellow again.

Padme met his gaze. His mouth twisted down sharply on one side, and he remained exactly as he was, perfectly balanced. In a moment he was inside of her.

_Padme would never get used to Coruscant's coldness. The cityscape was like a dark intruder; it got into everything, left you breathless. It was nothing like Naboo._

_Today's Senate hearing was a miserable reminder of government's intransigence. The Yellow Party and Blue Party, and the constituents they represented, were so polarized that every debate devolved into personal insults and ultimatums—and every floor vote was futile in light of the filibuster._

_There were times a part of her wondered if democracy was even plausible. There was, after all, a reason the Sith were winning the war. But as quickly as the thought came, her shame would vaporize it._

_Padme climbed the steps to her apartment. All she wanted now was a warm bath and eight hours of sleep. They were the only comforts a life of service regularly permitted her._

_At the front door, she keyed in her entry code, sighing contentedly as the door opened to admit her into the foyer._

_She set her bag and jacket down, then made her way to the living room. She pulled the pins out of her hair, so that its knots unwound and it cascaded down her shoulders. Already, she could feel the day begin to fade._

"_Lights on."_

_The computer obliged, and bulbs across the room came to life._

_Padme shrieked, jumping back as her eyes fell on a fourteen year-old Anakin Skywalker waiting patiently on her couch, hands folded in his lap. He looked utterly unashamed._

"_Anakin! What—" Her heart fluttered. "How did you get in here?"_

_He smirked in an unchildlike way. "I'm a Jedi, Padme."_

_The lamplight filled his eyes. They were blank of the thing that brought him. That was new to her; from the day they met, she'd read him easily; he was a bundle of nerves and sentiments straining against his skin. But now, seated in her living room, he was as empty as a droid._

"_Jedi or not, it isn't right to break into someone's home," she said sternly._

_Anakin regarded her perfect lips, twisted into a frown that reduced him to the least importance. He lifted his chin._

"_I just wanted to see you," the boy said, making a sour face. "You're never around. I've been waiting to see you for weeks. I've gone by the Senate, but they say you're busy. Left you notes and no answer."_

_Padme's eyebrows forced a line in her forehead. She fell back on a practiced condescension she usually used on politicians. "I'm sorry you feel ignored, Anakin, but I'm very busy. War has its requirements. Perhaps when it's resolved, we can spend some time together. We could go with Master Obi-Wan to – "_

_Anakin scowled. "I don't want to talk about Obi-Wan. That's all I ever talk about. No one talks about me." The anger somehow gave momentum to his original purpose. He pulled a shiny silver locket from inside his tunic. A heart shaped-pendant dangled from a short chain that could likely wouldn't fit a grown woman's neck. "I bought this for you," he said in frustration. "I saved a week of meal stipends. And I bought you this."_

_Padme blanched as the boy opened the locket to reveal their portraits—one on each half. Hers was from a gala for visiting dignitaries. His was a posed image against an artificial backdrop. There was an unnerving intimacy about their pictures almost touching._

_Her mouth opened and closed. She was conscious of her womanhood._

"_Anakin…" His eyes bore into her. "That's—that's very sweet of you," she said nervously. "You didn't have to do this."_

"_I wanted to."_

_He held out the locket for her, but she stepped back to avoid it. At his puzzled expression, she said: "It's so nice of you, Anakin—it's beautiful—but I can't accept it."_

_The boy's eyes flooded with something dark. He made a fist with his free hand. His breath came short._

"_I spent everything I had on it."_

"_I know. And it was very thoughtful, but—"_

"_I spent everything I_ had_," he repeated in a high rasping voice. "I do something nice for you and you—you walk all over it. Just like you always have! I'd walk through fire for you, Padme, and you can't even return a message!"_

_His voice grew more shrill and childlike, but his eyes more dangerous. They had a light yellow hue and none of a Jedi's patience. She felt a chill run up her spine. Her neck-hair stood up._

"_Anakin," she said, harshly enunciating, "I think it's time for you to leave."_

_His fist clenched, his expression trancelike. He was newly conscious of all he'd been denied in life. He knocked over a lamp across the room without even realizing._

_Padme gave him a wide berth, but regarded him severely._

"Now_," she demanded._

_Anakin burned with a common feckless anger, out of all proportion to its cause, and he judged that what he perceived as her unreason was the consequence of her being inseparably joined to the man who was ruining his life._

_With one final look, full of longing, Anakin stalked to the door and left._

_But as he walked home through the manic city, teeming with rights and wrongs, Anakin knew that he would have what belonged to him. Her rejection was naïve. The power was his. He was a Jedi—the Chosen One—and she was part of his domain, the same as his lightsaber._

Vader smiled darkly.

"Hello, Padme."


End file.
